Rob Huff hails Motegi as “one of the best weekends of my life”

Rob Huff turned around a troubled qualifying performance to put on two masterclasses in overtaking at Twin Ring Motegi, moving forward in race one to eighth from 11th, but put on a even better show in race two, driving from 13th to third, whilst fighting off the advances of Honda’s Gabriele Tarquini and Citroën’s Sébastien Loeb.

The Lada driver was embroiled in a race long battle with 2009 WTCC champion Tarquini, and nine-time World Rally champion Loeb during race two, having made a great start in the Vesta.

“I think I’ve definitely had one of the best racing weekends of my life,” said Huff to TouringCarTimes. “It was really hard work, I think I was really clever in the way I placed the car by positioning them where I wanted them, so that they couldn’t get past and so that they were then fighting each other.”

Explaining his tactic, which saw Tarquini and Loeb swap positions four times behind him throughout the race, with Loeb coming off the better, Huff said:

“Out of Turn 1 when I had Loeb behind me, I was lifting off down the straight to make sure he was on the right hand side of me, then I could hold him out and give Gabriele the chance, as it was easier to hold Gabriele off than Loeb. A few times I was just lifting off on the straight so that Loeb only had one option and that was the outside – and I’m never going to let anyone around the outside of me.”

After a handling problem meant the 2012 champion was unable to qualify any better than 13th on Saturday, the team took the car apart overnight and tried to resolve the handling problems, which date back to when the chassis was damaged after a crash in testing at the Hungaroring in May.

“I had a really good start and people were firing each other off and we took advantage of it and somehow ended up in P3…I’m really happy, the (Lada) guys did an amazing job last night to get the car right, it’s still not perfect, but it’s better than it was on Saturday.”