Rob Huff accepted the blame for causing the contact between Volvo drivers Nicky Catsburg and Néstor Girolami in the second World Touring Car Championship race in Hungary, which cost the Brit a chance of a win.
Huff started the race from pole after securing his first pole position of the year in qualifying on Saturday, but the Brit didn’t get off to a strong start, losing out to Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Mehdi Bennani and Volvo’s Catsburg and Girolami.
Then, at Turn 2, Huff made contact with the back of Catsburg’s S60, sending him into team-mate Girolami and ending the Argentine driver’s race.
The move saw Huff later handed a drive-through penalty, which dropped him to the back of the field and meant he had to drive the wheels off his Citroën and secure a solitary point for tenth.
“Unfortunately, this car is very difficult to get off the line, and I messed up the start which wasn’t ideal,” said Huff. “I recovered a little bit at Turn 1, but then just got caught out at Turn 2 when Nicky Catsburg braked a little bit early.
“It was a misjudgement on my side, so I’m ultimately responsible. To be fair, this is quite rare, I don’t remember the last time I caused an accident, but we all make mistakes, we’re only human.
“It’s a shame as it should have been our weekend – but it’s still not a bad weekend. I got five points for pole, and good points for third place in Race 1, and then managed to get a point in Race 2, at the end of the year, it might all count.”
Huff admits that he isn’t too concerned about being 58 points behind championship leader Tiago Monteiro already, with another 14 races still in the season for the Münnich Motorsport driver to close the gap.
“Tiago’s getting away a bit, but at the same time in 2011 I went to Macau 27 points behind Yvan and came out three behind, so all it needs is Tiago to have one bad round like Norbert [Michelisz] had this weekend, and it all turns around.
“We’ve now had one bad weekend and a half, so it only takes one bad round for Tiago for everyone else to be back in it again – it’s a long championship and you can’t have good luck forever.”