Rob Huff was pleased to leave the first of two Chinese race weekends in the World Touring Car Cup with a trio of top ten results, marking the Sébastien Loeb Racing drivers first points in the series since May.
Huff qualified his Volkswagen Golf GTi in ninth position for the weekend’s first race at the Ningbo International Speedpark on Saturday, but the Brit was able to make progress to finish sixth at the flag, feeling his race pace was better than his qualifying performance.
Huff also radioed into his team several times during the first race, urging them that his pace was better than that of team-mate Mehdi Bennani ahead, although he ultimately had to settle for fifth as no team orders were given.
Sunday then saw the Brit break into Q3 for just the second time this season, although Huff was only able to post the fifth quickest time after being eclipsed by the Hyundai and Honda drivers.
Race two saw even better progress for Huff, who finished fifth after starting from sixth, before he completed his weekend with another sixth-place finish, despite stern pressure from the CUPRA of Pepe Oriola behind.
“Considering how the weekend started, to come away with 31 points was a very good result,” said Huff. “The one-lap performance of our car wasn’t great, but the race performance was brilliant.
“We really lost out with the red flag in race three, as before that I was pulling away from the Audis and reeling Norbi [Michelisz] and [Denis] Dupont in, and then when we stopped everyone got to put on fresh tyres, which I think is a rule we should change. It definitely didn’t work in our favour.”
Huff said that after his disastrous race weekend last time out in Slovakia, where he failed to pick up a point or break into the top ten, he was relieved to find some form again at Ningbo.
“To come away with 31 points considering we were 17th in Free Practice 2 is great. We’ve worked harder this weekend than we have ever worked to really find the speed.
“The speed has usually come quite naturally to us, except in Slovakia, and this weekend we’ve had to look deep into the bucket to get the best result possible.”