Rob Huff is confident of scoring strong results in Sunday’s World Touring Car Championship races in Ningbo, China, despite the threat of torrential rain making conditions even worse than they were on Saturday.
Huff qualified as both the leading independent driver and the top Citroën in Saturday’s wet qualifying session, ending up almost a second off Volvo’s Néstor Girolami, despite completing more laps of the Ningbo International Speedpark than any other driver.
The Brit feels that he should have performed better on his Q3 shootout run, but blamed the changeable conditions for not being closer to the front.
“It’s been a busy weekend and I probably feel a lot better than I should do to be honest,” said Huff. “The conditions have definitely helped me this weekend. It’s not too hot and driving the cars in the wet is not too demanding at all.
“We probably missed out just a bit in qualifying for the WTCC; we’ve shown good pace all day but we just went slightly in the wrong direction when it mattered in qualifying.”
Huff was full of praise for Girolami, who claimed his first-ever WTCC pole position in the session to comfortably take the top spot.
“I’m first in WTCC Trophy and I’ve got two [overall] points in the bag. But I’m going to share the love with Volvo today – well done Néstor because if this guy didn’t have bad luck he’d have no luck at all.
“He’s had an awful season all through gremlins and bad luck and almost nothing to do with his own fault. So to turn it round and be on the pole position is very well deserved.”
With Sunday looking like being even more of a washout than Saturday, Huff remains confident, especially after he claimed victory in the first CTCC race earlier despite a drive-through penalty for a jump start.
“We did the China Touring Car Championship earlier, we started on pole, led, got a drive-through penalty but still won so I’m feeling confident,” added Huff. “There are some overtaking places for sure.
“It’s a tricky track with very difficult conditions and it seems like conditions tomorrow will be even worse than they are today. We don’t want them too bad that we can’t race, we want to put a show on because we’re all fighting for a championship and we need these races.
“It’s going to be difficult but I don’t think I really have an advantage.”