Two friends described as "a great couple of lads" died when they were thrown from their car after a high-speed race on an Austrian mountain road, an inquest heard.

Josh Robinson and Danny Hall, from Ashford, were killed when the Seat Leon Cupra they were driving fell 400m down the "windy piece of road" last July near the village of Fusch.

They were taking part in the Great European Rally, an eight-day social drive taking in some of the best driving roads on the continent.

Fellow drivers on the rally, who travelled up the mountain behind them, and who stayed in the hotel the night before, denied they were racing with Mr Robinson, 22, and 25-year-old Mr Hall, who died at the scene on July 24, 2015.

But locals reported to Austrian police seeing the boys' car coming up the mountain "at considerable speed" close together with a Porsche Boxster - driven by Richard Hill and his friend Andrew Terrill, from Plymouth.

Assistant coroner for central and south east Kent, Kate Thomas, concluded the pair died as a result of multiple head injuries in a road traffic collision after Mr Robinson "lost control of the vehicle while racing another participant".

Results of post-mortem examinations found "no seatbelt bruising" on either Mr Hall or Mr Robinson and that they had been "thrown from the vehicle", suffering multiple injuries including to their heads and chests, the court heard.

Family members were in tears while the evidence was read out and Ms Thomas recorded her verdict.

Giving evidence at the inquest in Folkestone today, Mr Hill denied they had been racing.

He said: "They were just a great couple of lads so we started hanging out."

The court heard the four had stayed in a hotel the night before the crash after some "horrendous" weather the day before.

Road conditions were described as being "dryish with wet patches" when the quartet set off at 7.30am.

Mr Hill added: "We had a meal together the night before. There wasn't really any discussion [about how they would go up the mountain].

"We started off at the bottom at the tollbooth because you have to. They were ahead and we never saw them again.

"We couldn't understand where they were because they were ahead of us and when we got to the top they weren't there so we went back."

The court heard the two cars had set off from their hotel to the top of the mountain road so they could take photographs before heading to Budapest, the final stop on the rally before heading back home.

But conflicting statements to Mr Hill's evidence were read out to the court from locals.

A cyclist going up the mountain, who did not see the actual accident, said he heard "screeching of tyres" coming from what sounded like two cars and "had the impression there was a race".

The statement read out to the court added they saw a Porsche followed by a blue Seat with "about five metres" between them.

Accounts gathered by the Austrian authorities from a local driver coming down the pass suggested the two cars came towards him "at considerable speed".

Giving evidence, Mr Hill said the statements were completely wrong and that he was driving to the conditions about "four or five minutes behind" Mr Hall and Mr Robinson.

The head chef of the hotel in Fusch, where the four men were staying the night before, said he saw the Seat driving off "at high speed" looking out of the restaurant window and then "four to five minutes later" the Porsche left at high speed but "slower than the Seat".

Ms Thomas said she found "on the balance of probability" the statements by the witnesses on the road "gave such detailed descriptions" and "stuck in the mind because they were in an informal race".

She added: "At some point it [the Seat] must've got ahead at some considerable distance.

"I find it was that Danny and Josh were driving too fast on this road."