Rob Huff delighted with first pole of 2012

Rob Huff took his first pole position of the season at the Salzburgring and closes the gap to Yvan Muller by one point and Alain Menu by two, and hopes to hold on for his second win of the season on the WTCC’s first visit to Austria.

The British driver, who took four pole positions in 2011, opened up his 2012 account today and claims five points in doing so with the fastest time in the second qualifying segment, establishing the track record at the Salzburgring at 1:26.791.

“It’s a bit late coming but we got there eventually,” said Huff to TouringCarTimes. “We assumed coming here that the slipstream was going to be mandatory and it turns out that we were right with that. We were gaining up to four-tenths of a second in a slipstream, that’s why we chose to optimise that and work together and it turned out really well.”

“Luckily we all managed to get a good shot at it, but that extra point we got off Yvan today, we need to get a few more of them so I’m very pleased.”
Chevrolet team-mate Alain Menu had set the pace in the first two practice sessions with Rob Huff a few tenths out in third on both occasions. However the 32-year-old wasn’t concerned about the gap to his two team-mates.

“I knew that I would have a car that was good enough with the right lap,” he said. Remarking on free practice he added “I was quite unhappy with…not with the balance of the car but other people around me on the circuit just not looking around and not playing the game, so we never got a slipstreamed lap, so we were always half a second down. Once we got that four-tenths of a tow we put it on pole by a tenth and a half.”

Looking ahead to tomorrow’s races, Huff doesn’t believe it’s necessarily a surefire win despite Chevrolet’s strength at the circuit.

“I think it’s going to be difficult because we’re racing, and with the slipstream that I’m going to be giving away. The one thing I think I can benefit from, 12 cars in a line means the first car gets pushed along as well. Hopefully the track’s narrow enough and my Cruze is wide enough to put it in the right place at the right time. ”

In race two, Huff will start from tenth with the reversed grid behind his two Chevrolet team-mates, and says:
“As long as I keep Yvan in my sights in race two and we gain points that’s the main thing.”