ROB Austin claimed Handy Motorsport’s eighth outright points finish of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship season at Oulton Park on Sunday, on a weekend where the Swindon team’s true potential was not fully realised.

Off the back of strong preparation prior to Saturday’s qualifying, confidence of a possible season-best performance in the grid-determining run was high and, had the session gone to plan, a top-10 placing was a strong likelihood.

In the end, despite being just 0.7 seconds shy of pole, Austin had to begin race one from 19th on the grid but he did battle his way into the outright points-paying top 15 and was in a great position to challenge for the top 10 in race two – until a lap-six retirement with damage.

Race three was the toughest challenge, from 30th on the grid, but Austin impressed on the soft compound Dunlop tyres to gain 14 positions and only miss out on another overall points result.

Handy team boss Simon Belcher said: “It’s been a weekend of mixed emotions, really.

“We know we had the pace in qualifying to be in the top 10 had the lap gone smoothly, and we had a good race car but with so much to do in the races, Rob had another very big challenge.

“Getting into the points in race one was great but race two was a disappointment. Rob definitely had the chance to be in the top 10.

“He did everything he could on the soft tyres in race three, almost made it into the points, but overall, it’s been another frustrating weekend for us and a case of what might have been.”

In terms of championship positions, Austin holds 16th place in the BTCC title battle and is sixth in the Independents Trophy.

Handy, meanwhile, are seventh in the Independents Team Trophy and hold a top-12 placing in the outright HiQ Teams Championship There are just two weeks to wait until the fifth race meeting of the BTCC season, the halfway point of the campaign, at Croft Circuit in North Yorkshire on 18-19 June.