Rob Huff: “This time last year we’d have dreamed of having three cars in the points”

Lada Sport Rosneft head into the mid-season break with a full testing and development plan ahead of them to upgrade their Vestas, with Rob Huff pointing out this it was this time last year that the team turned around the season with the flawed Granta, and is hoping for a similar pattern ahead of Motegi.

The British driver was caught out in qualifying due to a last minute set-up change with ruined his chance of a strong qualifying position, but was able to turn 13th on the grid into a pair of points finishes at the Vila Real street circuit.

“We had problems with the car on Saturday as we changed both hubs just before qualifying, but we never got to align the toe, so we were four or five mil of toe out on the front left, two on the front right and pretty much the same on the rear,” he said to TouringCarTimes. “That’s what effectively what cost us a top ten and that’s a shame as I think we really could have done something here.

“(But) two points scores isn’t bad from 13th on the grid. I had two really good starts, which is something we’ve been working really hard on. The clutch balance and mapping seems to be working really well as I jumped Mehdi (Bennani) off both starts.”

With a two month break, and after a few driver changes as the start of the year, the plan is now for Jaap van Lagen and Nicky Catsburg to be retained until the end of the season at Lada, the team are hoping to push forward and overcome the struggles in recent races, exaggerated by the addition of 20kg of compensation weight.

“It was the gap we had last year in which we made a complete swing around for the second part of the season,” said Huff. “This time last year, we would have dreamed of having three cars in the points. This year we had a couple of good weekends in Moscow and Slovakia, then we’ve had the weight and have been put back a few places because of that, so now we have to use this time wisely to move forward again.”