INTERVIEW BY DAMIEN SMITH
Rob Huff describes himself, with a self-deprecating chuckle, as a motor racing “journeyman” when he reflects on a colourful career as one of Britain’s best touring car specialists. But the negative connotation attached to that word does Huff a massive disservice given the high esteem in which he is held by his tin-top peers. The Cambridge-born racer, who turned 43 on Christmas Day, is best known for becoming a World Touring Car champion in 2012 and for his record 11 victories at the famous Macau street track, but the headline status stuff is just the tip of a heart-warming and entertaining racing story. A more accurate description would be to label Huff the modern equivalent of Steve Soper. High praise, especially as Motor Sport crowned ‘Soperman’ our number one in a list of the 20 greatest ‘saloonatics’ back in 2005, just as Huff ’s career was building a head of steam.
In 2023 Huff is heading into his 20th season as a touring car professional, on the back of a year in which he found himself resigned to a role of underdog in what turned out to be the last World Touring Car Cup. Still, it brought out the best in a driver who has always thrived on adversit y, his alliance with Hungarian minnow Zengo Motorsport catapulting him into unlikely title contention in a Cupra León only delivered to the team a matter of days before the first race. Huff scored a pair of wins and a clutch of podiums to easily claim the independents’ title, and he reckons second overall in the final standings would have been on had he not missed the penultimate round when Zengo’s perilous financial state bit hard.
“I drove better last year than I ever have,” he tells us from Spain, where he and his partner are relocating after six years living in Dubai. And he promises there’s more to come too, beyond his star turns in historics at Goodwood, for a driver
