Rob Huff: ‘I’ve been around this game too long to be frustrated’

Rob Huff says that he saw plenty of positives from his return to the British Touring Car Championship at Donington Park, with the Toyota ace having endured several setbacks over the weekend.

Making his full-time return to the BTCC for the first time since 2004, Huff closed in on the pace during Saturday morning’s practice sessions, ending up eighth after second practice.

But a procedural error by his Toyota team in qualifying meant he had to start Sunday’s opening race from the back of the grid, leaving him with an uphill task.

Having fought his way up to 13^th in a rain-affected race that featured only six racing laps, Huff was then unceremoniously knocked into the gravel by Daniel Rowbottom at the Old Hairpin on the third lap of restarted racing, dropping him to the back once more.

From 18^th on the grid for race two, Huff made up nine places during the race to take the chequered flag in ninth – and luckily that also gave the 2012 World Champion the reversed-grid pole position for the final race of the day.

Losing out to the fast-starting BMW of Adam Morgan at the start, Huff capitalised on a mistake by the WSR driver to seize the lead on lap six, but it wouldn’t last as he then found himself in a spirited battle with stable-mate Aiden Moffat.

A mistake at the Old Hairpin on lap 12 dropped Huff several places, and he ultimately went on to finish in sixth.

Despite enduring several issues on both days of his weekend, Huff left the opening weekend in good spirits, ninth overall in the drivers’ standings, and insisted he wasn’t frustrated with how things had panned out.

“I think I’ve been around this game too long to be frustrated,” huff told TouringCars.Net. “You have to look at positives, because that’s all we live off.

“Ultimately there has been lots of positives from today: it’s the first three starts I’ve done and all of those went fairly well, and I got back past Morgan [in race three], which was great. Obviously, he went off, but I think we were quicker than him anyway.

“You just learn, put everything in the memory bank and move forward. The guys that I’m racing against, most of them have got a lot of experience and only in BTCC.

“They know these cars inside out – these cars have been about for a long while, and ultimately they know their cars. They’ve done many seasons and many kilometres.

“Just wait, Huffy’s coming.”

The 44-year-old says that still coming away with a sixth from the final race was a good result from his first weekend.

“It’s obviously disappointing, but if someone had told me that after not qualifying and starting race one last, starting race two second from last, that we’d be finishing sixth in the last race of the day I would have bitten their hand off. There’s lots of learning to do.”

Huff also explained that returning to race in the UK was always part of his plan, and that he had other options on the table in other series but specifically chose to race in the BTCC this year.

“Quite honestly, I’m thrilled to be back. I’m really pleased. We’ve moved back to the UK, my Dad’s not very well and this was the whole point of doing Knockhill last year, to land myself a top seat, and I feel we’ve done that.

“This is my four or five batting out years. I will race for as long as I feel that I’m fast enough. I’m the first one to put my hands up that in race two I made a mistake. I’ve always been honest with myself, and I think that’s a big thing.

“While I enjoy it and while I’m still capable of competing at the front, I will continue to do it. I’ve got an amazing network that I’ve built up over 20 years of being a professional driver.

“Obviously BTCC financially works differently to what I’ve done in the past, in a different way, and now I’m using those partners and people that I’ve met along the way and I’m bringing them into this with me. We’re really enjoying it.

“I’m back in the UK and I don’t want to get on too many planes in a year now, because all I’ve done is get on planes for the last 20 years. I just want to enjoy being at home and racing in BTCC.”

Huff also praised the team-working ethos in the Speedworks team, with team-mate Andrew Watson and satellite team drivers Moffat and Josh Cook.

“As a team, we’ve got a lot of work to do and as four drivers we’ve got a lot of work to do. I’m stoked for Aiden that we won that race, he fully deserved that. He’s driven brilliantly at Donington all weekend.

“It’s all knowledge – we’re all running different directions with setup and all working well together, which is great.

“We’ve made really good steps forward and we’ve still got a way to go before we got on to the real speed of the BMWs, Hyundais and Fords, but it’s all knowledge, it’s all in the bank and we move forward.”