Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Rob Huff described his weekend in Wuhan in the World Touring Car Cup (WTCR) as ‘a disaster’ after the Brit took home just one point from the trio of races in the Chinese city.
Huff missed the top ten in Saturday’s qualifying session, managing just 14th in the best of the Volkswagens, and that left him only able to secure 14th place in the first race.
Sunday’s second qualifying session then saw Huff miss out on getting through to Q2 by a mere 0.012 seconds, leaving him to start both races from 13th on the grid, whilst team-mate Mehdi Bennani – just 0.014 seconds faster – got through to Q2, secured the reverse-grid pole position and ultimately went on to win the race.
Huff, from 13th on the grid, could only manage tenth position, which in itself was only achieved after Ma Qing Hua was given a post-race penalty for contact with the 38-year-old at the hairpin which ultimately let Yvan Muller past as well.
The final race of the weekend ultimately saw Huff eliminated on the opening lap in a multi-car accident, leaving him to take only one point away from the weekend.
“It’s literally been a disaster,” said Huff. “We need to find some luck at the moment as we’re fresh out of it.
“The second race was going OK, but as before everyone’s driving really erratically. All of the damage to the side of my car is from that race, as I had a Comtoyou Audi who decided to keep his foot flat through three corners and just drove down my side and then took another Audi clean out of the race.
“Then I got hit in the hairpin by a local and lost two places. I had a very nice fight with Yvan after that and it was like old times, and that was very enjoyable.
“In the last race I had a bad start, I came around the corner side-by-side with Yvan again through Turns 3, 4 and 5, we gave each other room, and then I arrive at Turn 7 and then parked in front of me is a Peugeot in the wall. I managed to stop the car pretty much, but then we had four big hits in the rear.
“It’s not been my finest weekend in China. It’s been hard work, a bit disappointing, but we’ll come back fighting again.”