Photo: Jacques Letihon Photographe

Rob Huff third in standings after an eventful weekend at Spa

Rob Huff and Jean-Karl Vernay leave Spa-Francorchamps third in the TCR Benelux series standings, despite the pair’s appearance being a one-off entry in the Belgian national series, with the two experiencing an up-and-down weekend.

Running in the Volkswagen test car as the team’s race car is still on its way back from Bahrain, Team WRT ran a third car in TCR Benelux alongside their regular two cars, for TCR International Series leader Vernay, in order for him to gain experience with the 2017-specification Golf ahead of the next race. The team also recruited 2012 WTCC drivers’ champion Rob Huff as his co-driver for the weekend.

While struggling with the car in qualifying, they also ran into trouble in the qualifying race, when team-mates Huff and Denis Dupont came together on the first lap at the chicane.

Vernay was able to set some quick times during his stint to secure a front row position for the sprint race, with the Frenchman finishing third in Race 1 and then second in Race 2.

Huff was on to mirror his co-driver’s results in the afternoon despite starting down in eighth, before he opted to let team-mate Maxime Potty past on the final lap into second in Race 4 in order to aid his championship bid.

“They were two good races,” said Huff to TouringCarTimes.

“Much better than Saturday obviously. I got a good start in the first race and was straight into P2, but there was just no chance to hold the Audi (of Sheldon van der Linde) off. I tried for a couple of laps, but we were losing to the Opel of Mat’o Homola; so I thought I’d let him past and we could catch the Astra…we only caught the Opel on the last lap when we could have caught him earlier if he hadn’t gone off twice, I guess that’s just a bit of inexperience on the South African lad’s side.”

In the second race, Huff challenged Homola for the lead down into Eau Rouge, but had to settle for second, but found himself knocked down to third when Homola went wide off circuit, and rejoined straight into Huff’s Golf.

“I got hit on the front-left. Someone went off and came back on and hit me really hard, and that’s when the Audi took the lead and the SEAT got ahead of me, even though they both did it off the track,” said Huff.

“It was a good race from there. Step-by-step I got close to the SEAT, I could see my team-mate (Maxime Potty) coming up behind, and I got to the radio and said to get him to hold back as we could get the SEAT. I went around the outside of the SEAT into the right-hander at the end, and he hit me, but I managed to hold it and hold the position, then on the last lap I let my team-mate through as we’re not in the championship.”

Huff’s next racing commitment will be the WTCC next weekend at Monza, back in his Münnich Motorsport Citroën, while Vernay will be defending his TCR International Series points lead a week later when the series visits Spa.