Rob Huff: I cannot wait!
By Dave Brockman:
It's been a while coming, the days have been going very slowly but now I'm here and I just want to get out in the car to get some mileage under my belt. You've been gradually driving bigger and bigger cars, working up from Clios through Cupras and now this. How much difference is there between the cars? Compared to the Cupras these are very different because the Cupra is a turbocharged car whereas this is a normally aspirated 2 litre which rev a lot higher, stop a lot quicker, has a lot more grip - all round it's just a much faster car. I haven't done much in this car yet and I've still got a few things to find out about it. But from doing a few laps it feels a lot quicker. The car's been very late launching, in fact until a couple of weeks ago we didn't even know what engine you'd be using. Has that hurt you at all? I don't know. The Spanish guys are helping us out a lot, they know where the car is at and know the set ups so it's just a case of transferring these onto the English circuits. As we all know the British tracks are very different to the European ones and the most minute set up change makes a big difference so it's not going to be easy, we know that. We've got a big mountain to climb but between Jason and myself we hope to get to the top pretty quickly. Of the top teams you're the only one to be running in ETCC spec. How much faith have you got in the series organisers to make the equivalency formula fair? At the end of the day it's down to Alan Gow to equalise the rules. I think today will give us a benchmark of where we're going to be, and they've got to look at it and assess how much they're going to give us or take away from us. So you won't be driving too fast today! We'll have to see. It's the first official test, me and Jason are here to learn as much as we can about the car and you're not going to do that unless you go fast. So we'll certainly be flat out - whether others like Muller and Thompson are going to be doing that is open to question because they all know that the rules are still to be finalised so maybe they'll be sandbagging a little. But me and Jason will definitely be going flat out! Last year in the Cupra Championship you had Jason acting as a mentor. In particular you came across as one of the most able to handle the media and the pressure. How much of a learning experience was that? Oh it was fantastic. You never normally have the opportunity in motorsport to gain so much press coverage or the amount of TV coverage that we got last year. Wherever we went whether it was at home or at the circuit there was always a camera crew with us for literally six months of the year. It was a huge learning curve and it prepared me really well for this year. Now you find yourself head-to-head with Jason. How much rivalry will there be between the two of you? It's a bit scary, isn't it? Until I get on his pace there probably won't be a lot or rivalry but as soon as I start hassling him a bit it'll become more, hmmm, interesting. At the end of the day we're all out for ourselves but at the same time Jason and I have got to get the team up to the front of the grid. Whether we're matching each other or not we've got to wait until we're mixing it with the Hondas and Vauxhalls before we start fighting. We've got to work together very hard to push this car as far forward as we possibly can. Until we start getting up to podium positions we'll be working very hard with each other. Realistically what are the aims for the year? Can you win races? I'll let you know in a couple of hours! You can't predict where we'll be. We know how we look on paper but on the track it could be a completely different story. Certainly we know where we want to be! |
I cannot wait for it to kick off! I've been looking forward to it for a long time
