Rob Huff and Andrew Watson aiming to build on early promise at Brands Hatch

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK’s Rob Huff and Andrew Watson are setting their sights on a strong showing in the British Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch this weekend as they look to build on the early promise they showed at last month’s season-opener.

Between them, the Speedworks Motorsport duo tallied five points finishes from six races at Donington Park, while Watson further underlined the potential of the Toyota Corolla by progressing all the way to the ‘Quick Six’ qualifying shootout.

Huff – who was making his full-time return to the series – bounced back from a nightmare Saturday to carve his way up the order and lead the reverse grid bout at one stage. Now armed with a race weekend under his belt, the former world champion is eager to head to a venue that holds many happy memories for him.

“Brands Hatch is a place with a lot of history for me,” said Huff. “My first-ever touring car win there in 2004 came at the end of what was probably one of the most famous last laps in BTCC history.

“It’s a fantastic spectator circuit that always attracts a big crowd, and hopefully the sun will put its hat on this time and we get some dry weather! We certainly go to Brands armed with plenty of useful data from pre-season testing, and we learnt a lot at Donington, too, both on-track and from an operational point-of-view.

“Everyone was thrown right in at the deep end there with the changeable conditions and consequent delays. Now we’ve got that first event under our belts, we can focus on moving forward – and hopefully have a more straightforward weekend to really kick-start our campaign.”

Watson meanwhile was left buoyed by the opening weekend of the campaign and the Northern Irishman is optimistic that further steps forward can be made around the short Indy circuit.

“You never maximise everything during the first weekend of the season, but overall, Donington Park was a really promising start,” continued Watson. “We know we have a lot of opportunities to further improve performance, and we know where those opportunities are, but the important thing is we’re in the mix.

“The times are always super-tight around Brands Hatch’s Indy loop, so having maximum hybrid deployment in qualifying will unquestionably be a benefit – we’ve already seen what a powerful tool that can be in the races at Donington and how it has the ability to really shake things up.

“At the end of the day, the best teams inevitably come to the fore – and that’s why I’m absolutely confident that we will deliver trophies and great results as the season progresses. Ultimately, we’re only just getting started, and that’s very exciting.”