Foster and Austin have differing views on Thruxton crash

Nick Foster and Rob Austin have given differing accounts of their huge accident at Church in the second Thruxton race, where the pair went off after touching at close to 140mph.

Austin attempted a pass on Foster on the entry to the super-fast corner, and his Audi A4 made contact with the rear of the BMW 125i, sending it spinning off and over the tyre barrier.

Foster was unhurt, and for his part, Austin also had a massive spin, but was able to recover on the grass and prevent his car from hitting the wall.

West Surrey Racing’s telemetry showed that Foster was doing 138mph when the pair touched. Despite the size of the accident, the BMW man said he was hopeful of being out for race three.

Both drivers have given their views of the accident to TouringCarTimes.

Foster said: “It’s not a place you want to go off as a driver. You know how it can be, and luckily the car’s not too bad, and I’m not too bad.

“I’m fine. I’ve been up to the doctors and they have checked me out. It’s a real credit to the BMW crash structure – it’s only done the bumper in a 140mph crash.

“I just feel very disappointed. With that corner you know what the consequences are. You should give people respect, and he didn’t.”

Assessing the impact itself, Foster added: “It’s normally the most dramatic crashes that aren’t that bad, because there’s diffusion of energy. When the car just stops, that’s when it really does damage, and hurts.

“I think the fact that it was tyres, and that the car rode up and moved around a bit, is what’s saved the car. Luckily it didn’t go over. Once you’re on the grass, you just wait.

“We’ve been lucky – someone was shining down on us today.”

Austin said he didn’t feel the accident was his fault.

He said: “I got a really good run out of Goodwood and I was really well alongside, nearly up with his front wheels. If anyone’s that far up the inside of me I’d say fine, have the corner.

“When he turned in, it caught me off guard a bit. I tried to back out of it, but he was coming across the apex and I was too far alongside to get out.

“I do feel terrible, because it’s never nice when you’re involved at all, whether it’s your fault or not. When an incident has consequences like that it’s quite upsetting.

“I like Nick, we’ve had some good races in the past and never touched. So it is a real shame.”

On his own escape, Austin added: “I really narrowly avoided a big one as well. I just came off the brakes, and it gripped on a lump of grass or something, and turned. It’s absolutely fine, thank God. It just needs a new splitter, and there’s a lot of grass to clean out.

“It’s a very fast corner with not a lot of run-off, and you don’t do anything silly there, and take any big risks. I didn’t feel that it was a big risk – I was well alongside. But equally I don’t want to blame Nick.”