Who am I? Rob Huff
Interviews | CREVENTIC
In 2022, eight years after he came close to winning the Hankook 24H DUBAI on his endurance racing debut, 2012 World Touring Car Champion Rob Huff returns to the event for another crack at victory. It’s the latest instalment in a long, incredibly illustrious motorsport career that, amazingly, was never really part of ‘the plan’…
Originally published – March 2022 | 2022 Hankook 12H MUGELLO magazine
“I don’t come from a ‘motorsport’ family, so there wasn’t really a plan. For us, it was just a case of a family enjoying motorsport.”
It’s an understandable, if slightly surreal, start to CREVENTIC’s interview with Rob Huff, one of the most experienced touring car drivers on the planet today, and, quite incredibly, still Britain’s most recent World Champion in a touring car since securing the crown 10 years ago. To say nothing of the TCR competition, both national and international, exploratory GT outings, and Goodwood Revival races of which he’s been at the forefront since then.
And yet, as he speaks with CREVENTIC between stints at the 2022 Hankook 24H DUBAI, ‘Huffy’, as his international fanbase knows him, freely admits that the career path he has followed for close to three decades could so easily have stalled before it had even started…
“My father was a chartered surveyor in the UK,” Rob continues, “and all my studies were towards that environment: to go into the family business. So, yeah, there was never really ‘a plan’. We never set out to become a professional driver until… probably the first time I was paid to drive in 2004. Until that happened, I never realized it could be a career. It was obviously a dream, for me and my father, to be a successful race driver, but the plan was to enjoy time together and have fun as a family. 20 years later, I think we did okay!”
‘We’ rather than ‘I’ will prove a recurrent theme throughout this story. While the 2012 WTCC champion has more than earned the right to brag unashamedly, he attributes most of his accomplishments to ‘Team Huffy’, a tight nit group that incorporates mum Kate, sister Francesca, and significantly, father Peter. Indeed, it was a young Rob’s trips with ‘Huff Daddy’, as Peter affectionately became known across many circuit paddocks worldwide in the years that followed, to a local indoor kart track that got the motorsport ball rolling…
“We started karting when I was 12 years old, but it was just my father and myself in endurance karting. But then the motorsport avenue started opening for me, and the idea of going into the family business went out of the window because motorsport was much more fun!”
A young ‘Huffy’ turned out to be pretty good. At 16, Rob entered, and won, a 60-minute ‘Iron Man’ go-kart race, and at 18, he came out on-top of a three-day knockout tournament to secure a £100,000 prize fund and scholarship with Jim Russell for 1999. One year later, Rob had stepped out of karts and into Formula Vauxhall single seaters. And won the title first time out!
The prize money didn’t last long though, and while Rob made the step up to Formula Renault 2.0 for 2001 with Scorpio Motorsport – alongside his new duties as a race instructor at Brands Hatch – by mid-season, the financial well had been tapped dry. Salvation this time came courtesy of elder sister Francesca, who discovered an advert for ‘bearacingdriver.com’ in the back of Autocar magazine. Once again, against hundreds of other aspiring British youngsters, Rob came out on top. Cue Team Huff’s first year of saloon car racing in 2002, this time in the Renault Clio Cup with the learned Tim Sugden.
A more savvy Rob and Peter by now though had realized the only way to succeed was to follow the money, and come season’s end, Huffy entered the newly-established SEAT Cupra Challenge for 2003, backed up by family savings and sponsorship deals with a Cambridgeshire SEAT dealership and a local haulage company.
But that was it. Win the title, and Team Huff was guaranteed a paid drive for 2004, with SEAT, in arguably the UK’s biggest motorsport program, the British Touring Car Championship. Don’t, and the dream was probably over…
“We didn’t have ‘motorsport money’, and it was a case of begging, stealing and borrowing from people. Obviously I knew the prize at the end of the Cupra Challenge was to become a works touring car driver, and, yeah, I knew that year it was everything. The Cupra Challenge was my only opportunity to really step up, so the pressure was on. That was the big chance.”
Team Huffy was not disappointed. After a season-long rivalry with future three-time BTCC champion Gordon Sheddon, three wins from 10 starts was enough to secure Rob the inaugural SEAT Cupra championship and his BTCC seat for 2004, incredibly, just four years on from his first-ever car race.
One tough opening at Thruxton aside, a maiden podium at round two at Brands Hatch (his years as an instructor clearly paid off…), two race wins later that year and consistent points-paying finishes were enough to secure Rob seventh in the championship standings. Not bad for a rookie, particularly one teamed alongside one of the BTCC’s notoriously tough drivers…
“Before I got the BTCC drive, I’d only done one year in Clio Cup and one year in the Cupra. And in those championships, I had no teammates. So my first teammate was Jason Plato. He’s a double champion. The king! And he’s a tough guy. Really tough, in the car and out. But as a teammate, he was on my side, and I learnt a lot from him.”
A championship assault looked on the cards for 2005: “to arrive in the BTCC is one thing but to stay is another level entirely. You need to be in the right place at the right time, and that year, we were.” Ironically though, a one-off guest appearance at Silverstone in 2017 aside, Rob’s BTCC career ultimately went no further as he was immediately moved up to the World Touring Car Championship for 2005 as part of a brand-new program with Chevrolet.
If learning a host of circuits he’d never been to before wasn’t enough, Rob’s teammates for his first international year of racing were former DTM champion (and Formula 1 podium finisher) Nicola Larina, and two-time BTCC champion, Alain Menu. Not that this bothered him…
“I was very lucky. For me, at 24 years old, being a baby, it was amazing to learn from these guys and see their input into how to develop a touring car and what sort of feedback engineers want from a driver. Remember, with the Chevrolet Lacetti, we were starting from zero, and for me, as a young driver, it’s one thing getting into a car that is already fast and handles well, it’s another thing to be in the development from zero and take it to a winning car. So, yeah, there was pressure, but as a young driver, it was a really amazing four years of development.”
With the maiden win in the bag midway through 2006, by the end of 2008, Rob had added three more wins to his WTCC tally and moved up to 3rd standings in the swansong year for the Lacetti, RML’s focus thereafter turning to, what would become, the all-conquering Cruze. More significantly, in 2010, Rob and Menu were joined by 2008 WTCC champion Yvan Muller (Larini had decided the time had come to hang up his helmet). Sadly for Team Huffy, Muller’s immediate form was devastating, the Frenchman winning on his Chevrolet debut in Cortiba and finishing a further 13 times on the podium that year to secure his second WTCC crown on the bounce, the first of three he’d win between 2010 and 2013.
Muller’s crushing form could easily have sunk a lesser competitor. And yet, like Plato before him, Muller’s ‘difficulty’ was just what a still young Rob Huff needed to raise his game…
“I knew Yvan had a bit of a reputation for being quite difficult – Yvan and Jason fought like dogs in the BTCC – but when you start and you have these guys as your teammates, life is never going to be tougher! To experience the hardest thing first prepares you for anything and everything, and if you go in at the deep end and survive, only good things will come.”
Demonstrably, as Rob went on to finish just three points shy of eventual champion Muller in 2011. One year later, Rob secured five wins and a further 10 podiums, and went into the 2012 season finale at Macau at the top of standings.
“I knew, going to Macau, that I was strong there. It’s my favourite track, but also the hardest track because it’s so easy to make a mistake and destroy everything.”
In the first race, the title looked to be in the bag. Polesitter Rob, despite being jumped at the start by Muller, sat comfortably in 2nd – more than enough to secure the title with a race to spare – only to spring a very late braking move back past Muller on lap four. “That’s a true move of a champion, right there” spoke Eurosport commentator, and fellow SEAT Cupra Champion, Harry Vaulkhard.
Half a lap later, an oversteer-y moment sent the Chevrolet with the Union Jack on its roof into the barriers, snapping the left rear suspension in the process.
The champion elect was out, and could nothing to stop his main rivals finishing 1st and 2nd.
“That meant in the second race, we were starting 9th. And that was tough. On the third lap, I was still in 9th place, and I really had to talk to myself because I basically forgot how to drive. I was shaking and it was horrible. I actually had to speak to myself in the car to calm down. It’s a moment I never want to experience again!”
While Menu had already catapulted into the lead, a now composed-but-still-fuming Rob was trying to get past Muller for 5th as the field entered lap four. The opportunity presented itself when Muller inadvertently tagged the back of 4th-placed Alex MacDowall, sending the independent Chevrolet heavily into the wall and opening the door for Rob to slip past both of them. Moments later, Norbert Micheliz and future TCR SPA 500 winner Pepe Oriola tangled on the same straight whilst battling for 2nd, with Rob once again the beneficiary.
Whatever happened now, Rob Huff was the World Touring Car Champion. Britain’s first since Andy Priaulx in 2007.
“The race finished under the safety car with only two laps left. So I knew, when the chequered flag came out, that it would be okay. But, wow! That was a scary weekend. I think I slept for about a week afterwards!
“I had one year with SEAT in the UK and eight years with Chevrolet, all run by [Ray Mallock Ltd]. The final goal was to win the championship. So those Chevrolet years were very, very special. Something that, in touring cars, you probably don’t get to experience for a second time. I mean, RML took a big gamble with me. I was a no-name driver, and they already had two very experienced drivers signed. To be able to reward them eight years later with a World Whampionship, I hope, showed them that they made a good decision in 2005 when they contacted me.”
Sadly, Team Huffy’s time on top of the world didn’t last long. Chevrolet had already confirmed mid-way through 2012 that its works outfit would be pulled for 2013, leaving the reigning World Champion without a drive. Keen to defend his crown, but unwilling to sign with a WTCC minnow, Huffy made the bold decision to join All-Inkl.com Münnich Motorsport for 2013: the reigning GT1 World Champion, yes, but a WTCC newcomer, nonetheless.
Progress was slow-going for the reigning World Champion however, Rob taking just two wins and three podiums en-route to a respectable but disappointing 4th in the standings. Keen to be at the sharp end again, and aware how significant a manufacturer works deal is to WTCC glory, Rob was on the move again for 2014, signing a two-year deal with new arrival, Lada Sport.
Before bidding adieu to All-Inkl.com however, there was another, unexpected challenge to take on: the 2014 Hankook 24H DUBAI.
“That was an amazing experience! To race a Mercedes SLS [AMG GT3], a top car, and to do it with All-INKL, who were the GT1 world champions in 2012… that’s how I met them actually, at the award ceremony in Istanbul, and that’s how we got talking about racing in 2013. But René [Münnich], the boss, said to me and Marc, “do you fancy doing the 24 hours?” It was amazing because he brought two cars, sponsored the whole thing, and it was great!
“We only qualified 14th, I think” – you’re too modest Rob, it was actually 12th… – “but after three hours, we were in the top three. We stayed in the top three the whole time, and eventually we managed to finish 2nd in my first ‘proper’ GT experience. I was a little disappointed we didn’t win, because we were pretty close. But it was a tough race because René didn’t want to drive too much, so Marc and I did about 10 hours each, I think!”
Though outside his wheelhouse, this was not the first-time tin top’s Team Huffy had explored the world of GT racing. In 2006, Rob made a one-off guest appearance at the Porsche Carrera Cup round at Snetterton, at which the fan favourite finished a solid 7th in race two. That’s not what most people remember Rob’s weekend for though…
“The Porsche thing was very last minute. Our chief mechanic at SEAT, his wife was running the Porsche Carrera Cup in the UK. They called me because it was my local track, and one press guy was supposed to race the car, but he did the practice on the Thursday and scared himself silly! So, they called me – “are you free this weekend? Can you come drive the Porsche? You’ll go straight into qualifying with no practice…” – and I’d never raced anything with rear-wheel drive or a rear-mounted engine. So, for sure it was a culture shock!
“We still managed to qualify, I think, 3rd, but I was a little bit excited in the races and I touched another car – Tim Harvey, who was competing for the championship! – which broke the radiator and we were both out of that race. The second race we had to start last and I came through to 7th. But, yeah, definitely an eye-opening experience.”
Back on the WTCC stages, a brutally uncompetitive Lada saw Rob jump ship to championship contender Honda for 2016, Rob immediately re-confirming his race-winning form by taking victory at the Paul Ricard season opener. This though would stand as Team Huffy’s sole win of 2016 and one of only six podiums with Honda. Despite talking up his chances of a second WTCC crown in 2017, Rob made the shock announcement in January that he was re-uniting with Münnich Motorsport for 2017, the latter now in possession of a works-developed Citroën C-Elysée that had just sealed its third consecutive WTCC crown in 2016.
It also, quite amazingly, marked the fifth different manufacturer Rob would drive for in the WTCC between 2012 and 2017. One year later, he’d make it six with Volkswagen.
“I’m not sure if I should be proud of that, but it’s nice that people wanted me!”
Sadly, the championship-potential of the Citroën failed to materialise though, and a frustrated Rob faded to 7th in the standings with just one win all season.
Even so, that win, in Macau, stands is a highlight for Rob. It was his 29th in the WTCC, a record bettered only by Muller. More so than that, it was his ninth win around the streets of Gia, easing him one ahead of British Superbike race winner Michael ‘The Blade’ Rutter. A dream end to what had been, in his own words, a “crappy” 2017, and a record he’d go on to extend to 10 wins in 2020.
Asked why Macau suits him? If only he knew…
“I have no idea! I wish I could sell the secret, I could make a lot of money! I think… I’ve always been very strong on street circuits, and Macau in particular. It’s just always been a circuit I’ve bonded with very well. You need to have huge respect for the circuit, which means maybe I push a little more than other drivers dare to. Maybe I’m a little more precise, I don’t know. It just seems, when the pressure’s on and I need to make a lap, it seems to happen.
“It’s such a dangerous circuit that, the sense of achievement you have when you do something there is better feeling than any other track in the world for me.
“To win Macau in a Lada for example” – which Rob did during a largely fruitless 2014 – “is something very special, because that shouldn’t happen. You shouldn’t be winning races in a Lada compared with the other manufacturers we were up against! They were really difficult times with Lada, but it meant that when we won that race, it made it even more special. And that Lada still has the lap record around Macau.”
With the World Touring Car Championship rebuilt from the ground-up as the TCR-focused ‘World Touring Car Cup’, Rob embarked upon a part-campaign in international TCR aboard the Leopard Racing Team WRT Volkswagen Golf GTI before joining the eponymous outfit of World Rally Championship GOAT Sebastien Loeb for 2018 and 2019. A tantalising pairing that, sadly, didn’t last as Rob eventually left the WTCR altogether to focus on managing Team Huffwork, his eponymous TCR team based in Asia.
Rob still competes, of course. In 2021, he returned to the WTCR with 24H SERIES staple Zengő Motorsport – “I think I look pretty good in green!” – aboard a CUPRA Leon (seventh manufacturer), and while terminal gearbox issues mean Rob ultimately can’t repeat his 2014 Dubai podium eight years later, his lap times aboard the Audi (eight) RS 3 LMS on his second Hankook 24H DUBAI outing in 2022 prove he’s lost none of his speed. Indeed, in 2020, Rob ventured Nordic-wards to compete in TCR Scandinavia, his first non-international campaign since 2004.
Which he won. First time out. He really did make a habit of that, didn’t he?!
It’s been a long time since his World Championship win, but Rob is still magnanimous. Statically, he’s entered more WTCC races than any other driver, won with more manufacturers than any other WTCC/WTCR driver, has started a new adventure as a team owner/manager, and proved his endurance racing pace can be as devastating as his GT pace was impressive 15 years ago.
All in all, not bad for a young man from Cambridge whose plans didn’t involve motorsport. Not bad at all.
Images | 24H SERIES | Petr Frýba | Audi | Chevrolet | Eric Teeken | FIA | SEAT | Volkswagen
Interviews | CREVENTIC | James Gent