Rob Huff happy with the day’s progress in the Power Maxed Vauxhall

Rob Huff was not downbeat after qualifying 28th on his BTCC return at Silverstone, with the team working through set-up issues throughout the day with the Vauxhall Astra, with the 2012 WTCC drivers’ champion believing he a good car for race day.

Huff was 25th in both practice sessions, and as the pace improved in qualifying, he effectively fell three spots back to 28th, but was just over six-tenths of a second off of pole-sitter Jack Goff’s pace in the Honda Civic in a tight qualifying session where a second covered the whole 32-car field.

“In both sessions this morning the car was completely wrong, but by qualifying the car felt really nice to drive,” said Huff to TouringCarTimes. “It was lovely, stable, working well. 45kg does hurt on the straights, we’ve seen that on the data compared to my team-mate Senna (Proctor).

“I think I’ve taken the team in a bit of a different direction today with the set-up, and it’s really suited me,” he added. “The problem we have is the exits. This morning we couldn’t get the entry, the mid or the exit, but we’ve now got the entry right, and a bit of the mid, and when you have a slow car in the straight anyway, not having the exit doesn’t help.”

Rob Huff is running with 45kg of success ballast as a substitute driver, which he’ll be able to remove after Race 1 if he finishes outside of the top ten.

“We’re running with 45kg of weight and six-tenths off pole, and two-tenths would have put us in the top ten,” said Huff. “But I think we have good race pace and the car feels nice now.

“I think we’ve achieved something just with working on the set-up today. At a longer circuit like Oulton Park or Donington that would show through more, but I have a car that’s really nice to drive.”