Rob Huff excluded from qualifying for technical infringement

Lada Sport Rosneft driver Rob Huff has had his times from qualifying in Thailand deleted after technical scrutineering found the rear windows on his Vesta WTCC were 0.2mm below the regulation thickness.

The British driver set the 11th fastest time in Q2, just outside the critical top ten which would have seen the 2012 champion start from the front row for race two. With 11th in qualifying, the Briton would have started in 11th for both races, but with his times deleted, both race grids are affected and he will start last at the Chang International Circuit.

“Unfortunately the FIA measured the thickness of the windows and on my car they found them to be 0.2 of a millimetre too thin, they need to be four millimetres and in my car they were 3.8,” Huff explained. “The ruling for that is all qualifying times are deleted and I start at the back of the grid for both races, not ideal by any means but hopefully something we can learn from and move forward.

“It’s purely a manufacturer-type thing. I need to speak to the team about it but we need the glass to be four millimetres thick but the tolerances of where it was made or whatever haven’t quite taken this into consideration or perhaps the mechanics are really strong at cleaning my windows or whatever. But for some reason the glass is too thin and we have to start at the back.”