Photo: WTCC Media

Rob Huff: “I did everything I could”

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Rob Huff isn’t downbeat about losing out on the 2011 World Touring Car Championship by just a whisker to Yvan Muller, and vows to come back next year fighting.

“I did everything I could today,” said Huff to TouringCarTimes. “There wasn’t a lot more I could do. Put it on pole, won both races, got fastest lap, the luck wasn’t going to go our way but we’ve got next year haven’t we.”

Huff took pole position for the first three meetings of the season, building up a strong points lead before Yvan Muller started to knock that gap down half way into the European season.

“We struggled in the mid season, we got unlucky, got taken out a little bit, at the end of the day someone told me Championships are always won on consistency; we’ve had four poles, eight wins, nine fastest laps and finished every single race in the points.”

“I’m pleased with the way I’ve driven, I think I’ve really stepped it up this year. I’m pleased I’m the one who took the fight to Yvan…I can walk away from this year very happy with my performances.”

Looking ahead to next year’s challenge, Huff doesn’t expect Chevrolet can stand still even despite Chevrolet’s dominating perfrormances in 2011, the strongest any manufacturer has been since the Championship started in 2005.

“SEAT are going to step it up for sure over the winter, BMW will definitely step it up and you’ve got to think those two cars have come here (to Macau) with no development or anything. BMW got their first cars in Brazil, SEAT got theirs half way through the year and I doubt they’ve been able to do any development other than on race weekends…I think people are going to catch us up quite a lot next year.”

Responding to belief in the paddock that Chevrolet have been holding back their performances this year, perhaps letting slip more performance this weekend with the RML Chevrolets almost two seconds clear of the rest of the field in every session, Huff responded:
“I wish we were holding back. The SEAT is definitely quicker than us in a straight line. On the basis of that we’ve got some work to do on the engine for sure. I think the thing that’s made our car incredible this year is the chassis…though you can’t take away from the fact that we’ve had 12 race weekends, 12 poles, 21 out of 24 races…which isn’t bad.”