Rob Huff was pleased with his performance in the FIA World Touring Car Cup (WTCR) races at the Hungaroring, despite saying that his Volkswagen Golf GTi is ‘missing a second’ compared to the competition.
Huff moved up one position in the overall championship standings over the Hungary weekend, from sixth to fifth, including taking victory in the reverse-grid second race on Sunday where he held off Hyundai racer Dániel Nagy for victory.
Whilst the Brit was happy with that effort, he believes that he is still missing around a second in performance compared with the pace-setting Hyundai and Honda cars.
“The car was really good, and I just managed to get that crucial start and get across in front of Dániel and he never really then gave me a challenge, which was good,” said Huff to TouringCars.Net. “I was just fast enough at the right points on the circuit to keep that advantage to stop him from attacking me under braking and I just kept getting the exits right, and as long as you get the exits right it makes it very difficult to overtake.
“We saw in race three there where Thed [Björk] was much faster than me, probably a second a lap faster, and he couldn’t use it because I just kept putting the car in the right place and getting the exits.”
Huff feels that whilst there is still more time for him to find in the car, it is not enough to make up for the shortfall in what he believes is a Balance of Performance [BoP] deficit.
“In Marrakech it was clear the gap was six tenths, and here it’s been a second. I feel that we did a really good job with our car all weekend; we really maximised it.
“OK, there’s always one or two, or possibly three tenths [to find] on the perfect lap in the perfect conditions, but we’re still missing seven tenths. Even if [we find] another three, that’s still too much to compete [at the front].
“I don’t need to talk about it – it’s not for me at the end of the day. I can only drive what I’ve got, and at the moment it’s not fast enough.
“We can make it faster of course, but there’s other people who can influence it as well and I’ll leave them to do their job.
“I don’t care for BoP, I’m a race car driver. It’s not my decision, it’s not my job, so it is what it is, and we have to go with what we’ve got.
“I’ve seen a lot of drivers complaining about it, but ultimately fans don’t care for BoP, fans just want to see good close fighting and racing. There’s pieces of the puzzle that still need to be found, but it’s a new championship, everyone’s learning and these things take time.”