Puncture hampers Rob Huff’s progress in Slovakia

Rob Huff experienced the highs of a podium finish in the opening race and the lows of a retirement in the second heat. The Honda driver ran out of time to pass Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Mehdi Bennani at the end of the first race, while contact in the second race with either his team-mates of Citroën’s Yvan Muller saw him eventually retire with a puncture.

“It was a bit of a bittersweet weekend, with a podium in Race 1 and a DNF in the second heat,” said the Honda driver. “I was third and watched the great fight between Tiago (Monteiro) and Mehdi (Bennani), unfortunately I didn’t have the legs to force Mehdi into a mistake in the last two laps. He is driving really well this year and deserves all the wins he got.”

Huff went on to describe the main race, in which a puncture left him with no chance to finish the race: “In the main race there were three Hondas side by side at the start, we touched each other a little but we survived and it was going pretty well. I had a great seat to watch another great fight, we bagged a lot of points and that’s good. In the end I got a puncture and I was out of the race, which was a shame. Honda had two positive weekends so far and we leave Slovakia leading both championships, so I think we made good use of the opportunity given by the extra ballast the Citroëns had to carry.”

Talking about next weekend at Hungaroring, the Brit hopes the Honda Civic will be able to cope with the extra weight awarded by the compensation weight system: “We are going into the next race with a bit of extra weight, but hopefully we will be able to cope really well.”

Huff is fourth in the championship on 49 points, 28 fewer than Honda Racing team-mate Tiago Monteiro.