Rob Huff on winning the final WTCC title for Chevrolet

Rob Huff has won the 2012 World Touring Car Championship drivers’ title for Chevrolet at Macau, after crashing out of race one but bouncing back to second place in race two.

The British driver had taken pole position in style on Friday, the only driver to break under the 2:30 barrier in qualifying since the WTCC has been to Macau. Huff lost out at the start however to Yvan Muller, but was able to retake the position on the fourth lap at the race at Lisboa, but further around the lap hit the wall and was forced to retire, gifting his two team-mates but also title rivals a 1-2 finish to keep the championship open for another race.

“Yvan braked early…I didn’t go for a move I just showed him my nose…and then he hit the brakes,” said Huff to TouringCarTimes. “So I just slid up the inside of him, then unfortunately about 12 corners later I lobbed it at the wall. Never in my life going through that corner have I ever had oversteer, but on that corner on that lap, I had oversteer. It makes no sense as you don’t brake for it, it’s almost flat out, so I don’t know if there was some debris or something, but we had oversteer and it made us clip the wall.”

The team, including Alain Menu’s and Yvan Muller’s mechnanics, worked on repairing Huff’s car for the second race so that he could take up his grid position, as now both Menu and Muller had closed up significantly in the standings and stood a real chance of being able to overhaul his lead.

“A huge thank you to the boys, everyone here was working on it to get it back straight and they did a grand job…I put it behind me quite quickly and went out there and had a strong race two and did what we needed to do.”

Reflecting on his eight years with Chevrolet, winning the championship racing with touring car idols Yvan Muller and Alain Menu as his team-mates, Huff said:
“To be here, to be the chosen one from Chevrolet back in 2005 was an absolute dream come true. So to be able reward Ray and Alain and Eric’s gamble on me, to be able to pay them back today with a World Championship on the last day of Chevrolet in the World Touring Cars is a very fitting story.”

FIA WTCC 2012 Final Drivers’ Championship Standings