Photo: PSP Images

Rob Huff disappointed after lost points opportunity

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Münnich Motorsport’s Rob Huff dropped from third to fifth in the standings after a trying weekend, first starting from the mid-field as one of the drivers penalised for driving too slowly in qualifying, and then was hit by RML’s Tom Chilton in race one.

Huff started from 13th place after his ten place penalty for race one, and followed former team-mate Yvan Muller up the order in the early stages, before he was held up by the Lada of Mikhail Kozlovskiy and the BMW 320 TC of Franz Engstler.

Later in the race whilst fighting with James Thompson’s Lada, the reigning champion was hit by Thompson at Turn 12 on lap eight, but was able to control the slide and continue on, though would later lose one spot to Tom Chilton after further contact.

“If we were at any more of an angle, that wasn’t coming back. I was quite pleased with that actually as I didn’t think we were going to save that,” said Huff to TouringCarTimes.

“I’m not quite sure what happened there, I don’t know if Thommo was defending from whoever was behind him, and they both run a bit too quick into the corner as Thommo’s not like that I know that, but the biggest pop of the day was Chilton thwacking me up the backside while not even trying to overtake me,” he added.

“It’s a real shame cos that ruined both races for us really, it ripped the flat floor off and we couldn’t replace it between the two races so we had to do the second race with no flat floor and the balance was just off, the car was very difficult to drive and the car was half a second off the pace.”

Huff went on to finish eighth in race one and ninth in race two despite the damage, battling with Gabriele Tarquini’s Honda in the final stages of the race.

“It’s nice to be in a car this old and be able to battle with one of the new cars,” concluded Huff. “As always the team did a mega job and the balance of the car this weekend has been good, every session we’ve been in the top four, unfortunately with the penalties we got after qualifying and with Tom firing us off it ruined the weekend.”