CONSISTENCY proved the key to success for DUO Motorsport with HAMS Racing’s Rob Austin, who collected points in all three races at the latest round of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at the Knockhill Racing Circuit, Scotland.

The weekend’s performance provided the Swindon team with their first weekend of scoring points in all three races.

As an added bonus, Austin finished ninth during a wet round 23 as rain dictated proceedings.

A fair qualifying performance saw Austin clock a time just 0.4 seconds short of pole position, though he still had to start from 13th on the grid – such was the competitiveness of the latest round.

Mechanical issues made for a long night in the garage for the team before Austin recorded a 14th place finish in the meeting's first race.

While the rain became heavier, Austin’s performances improved.

After moving into 13th during the start of the second race, Austin moved up to 11th before the race was red-flagged following fellow driver Sam Smelt’s heavy crash.

A post-race decision was made though to exclude Ashley Sutton and Tom Ingram for failing the ride-height check, which consequently promoted Austin to ninth.

A turbulent third race resulted in Austin finishing 13th after starting from ninth on the grid.

A clean getaway saw the Swindon racer relegated to 10th before a four-lap safety car period bunched the pack up, allowing chasing drivers to make their move and shuffle Austin down to 13th by time the chequered flag fell.

“We went further with the changes to the car for race three, and possibly got it a bit wrong,” said Austin.

“We were really lacking front-end grip for the first half of the race, but as everyone started to struggle with tyres later on we had good pace.

“Compared to what’s happened recently with some of the bad luck, it’s been good to have a relatively good, incident-free weekend.”

Silverstone National Circuit in Northamptonshire will host the penultimate event of the British Touring Car Championship season over the weekend of September 15/16.