Photo: Lada Sport Rosneft

Large track debris stops Rob Huff’s charge in race two in Slovakia

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A large piece of rock, believed to be part of one the kerbs, took Rob Huff’s Lada Vesta out of sixth position in the second race of the day at Slovakiaring, meaning Huff’s fourth place from race one was the best result of the day for the Russian manufacturer.

Huff had worked his way to behind team-mate Jaap van Lagen at the start of the second race, but after seven laps, the 35-year-old collected the large piece of stone in the front grill of the Vesta, which caused significant internal damage causing him to head to the pits.

“Jaap (van Lagen) just touched it and he thinks he saw it come loose a lap or two laps before. It’s one of the difficulties with allowing us to use all the run-off,” said Huff to TouringCarTimes “It’s a good 4” bit of concrete and obviously it ruined our race. It could have been very, very dangerous, if it came through the window it’d kill you.”

Reflecting on the day’s results, the Briton wasn’t too downbeat, despite the gap to Citroën having turned out to have been more than expected before the weekend.

“Race one was very good,” he said. “I didn’t have a great start but managed to hold (Hugo) Valente and (Gabriele) Tarquini off and then I just settled down into a rhythm but we couldn’t get anywhere near the Citroëns.

“Then in race two, I got a half decent start, but Jaap had a bad start so we met each other at Turn 2 and then I had a couple of goes at trying to get past, but when you get close here you lose your aero and then get a load of understeer, that’s just the nature of the track. Two weekends ago we’d have been screaming to get fourth place…I think everyone thought with the weight we’d go really well around here, and we have, all in all, it was another good weekend for the team.”