Rob Huff “relieved” with reverse pole in Slovakia

Rob Huff admitted he was “relieved” to secure pole for the second World Touring Car Cup race of the weekend in Slovakia after a tough day at the office for the Sebastien Loeb Racing team.

Running with additional weight at a circuit where the Volkswagen Golf had struggled last season, Huff was off the pace in the opening qualifying session of the weekend and could only manage 24th on the grid for the first race.

However, mixed conditions in the second session provided an opportunity to vault up the order, with the Briton timing his run in Q1 to perfection to set a time good enough to make it through to Q2.

There, on an ever drying circuit, Huff secured the tenth best time which was good enough to earn him pole for race two and a chance to salvage some points from what looked set to be a difficult weekend on track.

“I’ll take P10 all day long,” he said. “When we have a problem, these guys sort it out and we’ve been struggling as everyone can see; this is where we’re at and we’re not playing. The conditions played into our hands as I like it when it is like that and I managed to get a good lap in Q1 although it was close with the time.

“Hopefully we can try to make something from Sunday with this but I had to use all my experience. We’d improved the car a lot from the morning but it was a different car to drive and we had to find what it liked and didn’t like, which is hard when you only have one lap.

“Slovakia is tough on the tyres and they’ll last one lap, plus it was drying all the time as well. It was a case of using my experience and it’s great to reward the boys and we now have something to look forward to.

“I’m looking forward to Sunday and it’s a relief to get this result because we’ve struggled like hell and it’s become quite a special day.”