Austin: it was bloody awesome!

Rob Austin insisted his Knockhill weekend had been 'bloody awesome' after taking a starring role in the latest rounds of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.

The WIX Racing man enjoyed easily his best weekend of the season to date as he stormed to a maiden pole position on Saturday, marking the first time that an Audi had topped a BTCC qualifying session since 1997.

Although unable to hold onto his advantage at the head of the field in the opening race, Austin brought home a podium finish in third and then went one better in race two to match his best BTCC result to date with second place having jumped ahead of Gordon Shedden on the run to turn one.

The reverse grid final race saw Austin cross the line fifth - which later became fourth after Colin Turkington's exclusion - with the end result being that Austin now sits just ten points away from a place in the top ten of the championship standings.

"Awesome... absolutely bloody awesome!" Austin said. "We've come to possibly the meanest track on the calendar, given the Audi name its first pole position in the BTCC in nearly 20 years, taken the fight to teams with much more experience and much bigger budgets and really done the business.

"Sherman has been faultless all weekend, my mechanics have done the most incredible job and the support from the fans and of course WIX is just out of this world. I doubt any other team in the pit lane enjoys such as good an atmosphere as ours. We're also winning in the popularity stakes it seems going by the response we've had all season from the public and particularly this weekend.

"What this will do is give everyone associated with the team a huge lift for the remainder of the season. We're back where I genuinely feel we belong, we know what is achievable and of course we're pumped up for wins from here on in."