Rob Huff delighted in claiming his second British Touring Car Championship victory of the season at Knockhill, after claiming the spoils in the reverse-grid final race.
Qualifying on Saturday proved to be challenging for the 2012 World Touring Car Champion, who could only put his Speedworks Motorsport-prepared Toyota in 13th on the grid for the opening race.
However, with the soft tyre on for the opening race, Huff gained ground, including a switchback move on Dan Cammish, to claim eighth, moving up five places.
He slipped back in the second race with the less-favourable medium compound tyre on, taking the chequered flag in 12th.
After a pair of points finishes in Sunday’s earlier races, Huff’s luck turned for the final race of the day when he was drawn to start from pole position for the partially reversed grid race.
Putting in a determined drive to fend off title contender Tom Ingram, Huff completed a near lights-to-flag drive to claim his fourth win in the BTCC and his second of 2024.
“I’m super-proud of the team, and super-proud of myself as well, to be honest,” said Huff. “We had a few problems in qualifying, but we identified the cause and put everything right in time for Sunday.
“We took the option of the soft tyre for race one, which I think was the right choice and helped us to climb to eighth, so that was a good start.
“I rather enjoyed the scrap with Dan [Cammish]; it was hard, fair racing with him giving me the room I needed and vice-versa – exactly how it should be. Hopefully we made it exciting for everybody watching!
“We then made a few more little tweaks that took the car even further in the right direction, and what a mega battle we had in race three – that was proper touring car racing and I enjoyed it a lot!
“I figured out fairly early where Ingram was quicker than me, and I made sure I covered him while trying to capitalise upon where I was stronger.
“It’s so tight-and-twisty around Knockhill that you fortunately don’t have to do too much in the way of defending, and I was very canny with where I placed my car.
“I used my hybrid smartly, ensuring I still had enough left for later on and while Tom tried hard, he saw how much I wanted it and with a championship to consider, I think he probably thought twice.
“When he and Tom Chilton then began fighting amongst themselves, that gave me a little bit of respite in the closing laps.
“I’m so, so pleased – it was a great end to the weekend.”