EVESHAM'S Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship ace Rob Austin steered his brand new DUO Motorsport with HMS Racing Alfa Romeo Giulietta to a podium finish on the opening weekend of the season at Brands Hatch.

He took third place in round three and the result at the 1.2-mile Indy Circuit also sparked emotional celebrations with Austin dedicating the performance to the memory of team mechanic Shane Stokes who tragically died late last year.

Added to a sixth-place finish from 29th on the grid in the preceding wet-but-drying race where an inspired gamble on slick Dunlop tyres paid dividends, he departed an impressive fourth in the outright championship standings.

“It’s for Shane,” said an emotional Austin. “It’s very mixed emotions to be here (on the podium), we miss him a lot and this is for him. He’s looking over us and gave us that luck in race two with the reverse grid draw.

“We didn’t have the front tyres to win it, this is the first time we’ve put soft tyres on it, so we’ve still got a huge amount to learn with this car but it’ll come. It’s a great base car, the engineering that’s gone into this is the best I’ve seen on this grid.

“We just need to figure out how to get it to work, we need a couple of test days and a bit of development to do that.”

From the outset during the two practice sessions, the competitiveness of this year’s championship was underlined with less than a second covering the top 30 cars.

In qualifying later in the day, mere fractions made all the difference and Austin was just 0.2 seconds shy of the eventual pole time with a lap of 48.289 (90.05mph), meaning 11th on the grid for race one.

Rain throughout the morning resulted in a wet track for the opening race and Austin was 12th before contact from Tom Oliphant’s Mercedes led to a broken rear suspension and retirement for the Alfa.

Austin had a mountain to climb in round two from 29th on the grid but leapt into the top six.

He led the third race from pole but was edged back to second at halfway and eventually settled for third position.

Rounds four, five and six are on April 28 and 29 at Donington Park.

Senna Proctor, of Bidford-on-Avon's Power Maxed TAG Racing, took the spoils in the second race in his Vauxhall Astra, surging past his rivals who chose wet tyres after starting in 27th.

He became the 18th race-winner in the championship line-up as the PMR squad also grabbed their first victory.

Proctor said: "I’m over the moon. I’ve winded myself jumping up and down celebrating.

"This is unbelievable and all credit to the boys at Power Maxed TAG Racing and all of our sponsors. They’re the reason I’m stood here.

"I’m still waiting to wake up from this dream — it’s amazing."

His team-mate Josh Cook was 10th in race three.