Rob Huff: “We knew it was going to be bad, but not this bad”

Rob Huff says it feels strange to have fallen from pole position to fighting to be in the top 20 at Slovakiaring, but says it’s no more than the circuit characteristics plus the maximum compensation weight that’s the factor.

The Sébastien Loeb Racing team are running two brand new Volkswagen Golf GTI TCRs for Huff and team-mate Mehdi Bennani this weekend, but with Huff’s poles and race pace from Zandvoort and Vila Real factored in, the cars are the heaviest on the track this weekend at 1,315kg, 10kg heavier than the Audi, Hyundai and Honda.

“On paper, this is our worst nightmare in terms of the layout. It’s got two or three high-speed corners, so we knew it would we bad, but we didn’t expect it to be this bad,” Huff said to TouringCarTimes.

“Yesterday I was doing 2:12.0s then 11.8s, there’s maybe an 11.6 in the car – but that just puts us 19th instead of 22nd, so today we decided what’s the point in wasting tyres to be 20th at best, and just use one set of tyres and be 24th and save a set of tyres.

“It’s a shame, because on Saturday on Portugal we looked like heroes, and so far we’ve been in the top ten every race.”