Rob Austin will race under the Exocet Racing banner in the 2014 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship, aiming to run a pair of Audi A4s once again.
Austin enters the year off the back of a memorable 2013 championship campaign having claimed his first pole position and race victory on his way to 11th in the final standings, the first Audi win since 1997.
Revealed at the Autosport International Show in Birmingham on 9 January, Austin’s Audi A4 will carry backing from Fast Exocet in 2014 , having sponsored a second Audi driven by Jake Hill during the final round of last season at Brands Hatch.
Speaking to the thecheckeredflag, Austin commented: “Last year was such an emotional roller-coaster. The lows were very low but the highs were far, far out way; we achieved some amazing things last year and were proud of everything we did.”
With the luxury of testing now at the team’s disposal, Austin is hunting for wins immediately, adding: “I’ve aimed to win at every race which I’ve ever done! Of course I’m aiming to win like everybody else is – I wouldn’t be a proper race driver if I didn’t.
“Realistically you’ve just got to work as hard as you can, fight as hard as you can and do the best you can, and let the rest judge itself.”
Austin confirmed the Exocet Racing deal will be a two-year project, offering the assurance of stability heading into the new season that had been uncertain in previous seasons.
“I can’t tell you how essential it is”, Austin added on his double year deal. “It’s brilliant. It gives us more time to play with.
“This year is the first that we have stability in our rules. We’ve got fantastic support now from Fast Exocet, so we’re going to be ready early and be able to go testing and I think we showed last year that when we get it right we can fight at the front.
“Hopefully we can get it right all the time! Last year while engineering the car myself I made a few mistakes, but we didn’t do a single test day last year. I’m really excited about it.”
Having run two cars in 2013, Austin aims to continue the trend during the new season by introducing a second A4 as the 2014 campaign draws closer.
“We’ve always been about running two cars. It’s a lot of money to run these cars for a year and it’s not a five minute job to put them together, so it’s something we are working on.”
