Rob Huff calls for rules review following Azcona penalty

TCR World Tour title contender Rob Huff has called for a review of penalty rules in the championship in the wake of BRC Hyundai rival Mikel Azcona impeding the British Comtoyou Audi driver in qualifying for the Macau season-finale.

Azcona was found to have blocked Huff, who is battling for the title with Azcona’s team-mate Norbert Michelisz, on a flying lap and was duly demoted three slots on the Race 1 grid.

However, the Spaniard still keeps the qualifying points he scored for second, with qualifying and the officially posted grids currently kept apart as separate entities.

Although there is nothing the stewards could have done differently in this instance, Huff welcomed an overview of the rules moving forward.

“I think it’s definitely a bit confusing, as even though Mikel gets a three-slot penalty, he gets to keep his points for P2 from the same session,” Huff said to TouringCarTimes.

“Ultimately there are big points in qualifying, so there are games you can easily play there and I think they (BRC Hyundai) probably played that quite well.

“I think it’s something in the future that needs to be looked at.”

Asked if he thought Azcona had intentionally blocked him, Huff paused for a moment.

“I mean… If I thought it was intentional, I would leave this championship immediately. I’ve been here for 20 years in this paddock and if I really thought they were doing something like that intentionally… I don’t know.

“At the same time, Mikel is a very experienced driver. He is a world champion. I’d let him past on the lap before – he even came up and said afterwards that I did it perfectly – to not cause them a problem. We’re 12 cars on track at one of the longest circuits. If you’re going to have a cool-down lap, you just need to look in your mirrors.

“It’s not rocket science, and he (Azcona) didn’t.”

Huff was impeded in the tightest part of the Guia circuit, in the four corners leading to the Melco hairpin, and was visibly upset after the session.

“In the end the penalty for him is nothing because he’s not in the championship fight anyway, so you could probably say he did a good job or whatever. Maybe I’m stupid, but I’d really like to think he didn’t do it on purpose. Because if it was, I think that’s absolutely disgusting.”

Huff is the most successful touring car driver in history at Macau with 11 victories to his name, but has struggled for pace in the Chinese SAR this weekend.

He will line up fourth in the first race on Saturday following Azcona’s penalty, but has never appeared to truly trouble the pace-setting Hyundais across the first two days of the event.

“I did my worst qualifying here in Macau for something like ten years. We do have a problem with a bit of brake balance migration on the car, but ultimately that’s not eight tenths of a second,” Huff explained.

“We know my team-mate Fred Vervisch (who qualified seventh) is a very, very quick driver and has won around here as well, hugely confident in the high-speed corners. I wish there was eight-nine tenths left in our car, but unfortunately, there just isn’t.

“We don’t have the front grip that the others seem to have when getting on the power through the corners. We’ll see what we can do, but it’s a trend we’ve seen this year on slippery tracks. In qualifying we seem to struggle much more than the other cars, and then in the races it tends to come back to us. We’ll see tomorrow.”

With the title race coming down to the final two races and Huff vs. Michelisz vs. Yann Ehrlacher of the four-car Cyan Racing Lynk & Co squad, Huff made little secret of the fact team play is certain to come into force.

“The top three teams have got one player each in the game. No one else is in the championship. So, do I expect everyone else in those teams to do everything they can for their number one? Of course.”