HANDY Motorsport achieved its target of a hat-trick of points results during the latest round of the British Touring Car Championship at Thruxton.

The points return also saw Rob Austin climb to ninth place in the overall driving standings.

Exceeding his own pre-event expectations on Saturday, May 6, Austin built on top four pace from second free practice with an excellent fifth fastest time in qualifying, a lap of 1 minutes 16.377 seconds putting him within just 0.3 seconds of pole position.

Taking weekend best finishes of fifth in rounds eight and nine at the wheel of his Toyota Avensis, Austin also claimed a brace of top three Independents Trophy results to move him into fourth of the class standings.

“It’s a really strange feeling,” Austin said. “The way we’re getting the car to work this season just doesn’t suit Thruxton, but the boys did an awesome job to give me a great car for qualifying and my lap was very satisfying.

“I’ve completely changed the way I drive a car around Thruxton to adapt to the front-wheel drive. I did the research and worked on it.

“The main thing this weekend was to score well in all three races and we achieved that, we’ve shown we can do it.

“We’ve taken a really solid points haul away from our weakest circuit, so that’s incredibly positive and huge credit to the team who worked so hard all weekend. I really wanted to try and take a podium but, even without one, we definitely exceeded expectations.”

Team principal Simon Belcher added: “It’s been a very positive weekend. Three good top 10 finishes is what we wanted to achieve and we did that.

“We always knew Thruxton would be all about the Hondas in qualifying, so to be so close to them was a great effort from Rob and the team. If we can be this competitive at a circuit which isn’t suited to our car, it bodes well for the rest of the season.”

The Swindon team now head to Oulton Park on May 20/21 for the next round of the BTCC.