Rob Huff might need new car built after Morocco smash

Lada Sport Rosneft’s Rob Huff fears that the team will be forced to build a new car after his race car was heavily damaged in the second race at Marrakech in an incident with team-mate Mikhail Kozlovskiy.

The British driver picked up Lada’s first points of the season retrospectively, when ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Chilton was given a 30-second penalty after race one which elevated him to tenth position, but in race two Huff was taken out in the final corner after Kozlovskiy locked his brakes into the turn and smashed into the back of the Vesta.

Kozlovskiy believed the cause of the accident was due to a brake problem, but the officials saw differently and chose to give the Russian a 30-second penalty, although as he didn’t finish the race it makes no difference to his race result.

“The pedal was really strange with the response as it was sometimes going all the way down, while sometimes it was normal so I never knew what to expect,” said Kozlovskiy to TouringCarTImes. “I was braking quite early and not overtaking anyone and just holding my position, as my power steering isn’t working so I can’t overtake anyone in the hairpin. We’re going to check the car as it felt quite strange.”

Huff was pragmatic about the incident, and about the weekends results on the whole despite a persistent power steering issue experienced by the team on its three Vestas.

“At the end of the day we scored a point,” said Huff to TouringCarTimes. “We had a lot of problems this weekend with the power steering, so that’s the first thing to do. Well, actually the first thing to do is to build the test car for me as this car is destroyed. The rear and the roll cage is done, so we need to make the spare car for me for the Tuesday 28th test at the Nürburgring.

“It’s a shame, but on the whole, without any power steering and the problems we’ve had, we’ve had a good weekend, James (Thompson) and I have both scored points, so things are starting to come together a bit.”