Lada driver Rob Huff retains #12 for 2015, while Thompson changes

Lada Sport Rosneft driver Rob Huff will continue to carry the #12 on his Lada this season, the only significant carry-over from 2014, as the livery changes to yellow and the car switches to the ORECA-prepared Vesta for the 2015 season. Huff’s Russian team-mate Mikhail Kozlovskiy will carry the #14 again, while James Thompson switches from #11 to #15.

Huff, who won two races last season for Lada in Beijing and Macau, two tracks which aren’t back on the calendar this year, believes the new Lada package will be able to offer the 2012 champion more opportunities to win this season.

“We can win races,” he said. “We know straight out of the box the car we’ve got for this year will be quicker than what we finished with last year 100 per cent. Ultimately we’re going to have to wait and see, but we’re probably going to get three weeks of solid testing before we get to the first race, which is three weeks of solid testing more than we managed last year. If we can get to the first race with a small understanding of the car and a base set-up, then we can rock and roll from there.”

Huff first raced with #12 in the WTCC last season with Lada, but also famously carried it on his SEAT Toledo in his only season in the British Touring Car Championship in 2004.

The number has most often been associated with French driver Yvan Muller, who raced with it from 2006-2008 before winning his first title, and then returned to using it in 2013 in his fourth championship winning season with RML, although other drivers to race with it include Franz Engstler (BMW, 2011), Alain Menu (Chevrolet, 2009) and Marc Carol (SEAT, 2005).

The Lada testing programme is due to get underway tomorrow at the team’s operational base at the Magny-Cours circuit in France.