Rob Huff questions 'inconsistent' penalties in WTCC
Rob Huff questioned the inconsistency of penalties handed out during the second World Touring Car Championship race at the Hungaroring after a drive-through penalty dropped him out of contention
Starting third, Huff had worked his way up to second in a sodden encounter before being passed by Citroen's Yvan Muller just as the safety car was being called.
Huff came alive when the race restarted as he caught Muller and race leader Jose Maria Lopez, but was one of two drivers to receive a drive-through penalty after he and Muller came together at Turn 2 at the start of lap 10.
Conversely, team-mate Norbert Michelisz was hit by Lada's Hugo Valente, Huff and Tom Coronel made contact at the first corner on the opening lap, and Thed Bjork and Gabriele Tarquini came together, forcing Tarquini to retire - but the stewards took no action on any of those moves.
Defending his overtake, Huff told Autosport a lack of clarity on what was deemed fair racing was part of the reason moves like his were being attempted.
"It was a very harsh decision," he said. "If you go on social media, and listen to the commentary, so many people are very upset with it.
"I think [that's] mainly due to the inconsistency of penalties being handed out.
"We came out of Turn 1, I got better traction, I was on his right and as normal the Citroen out-accelerated me.
"He was defending and then jumped a car-width to the right, so he literally jumped straight in front of me and hit the brake hard.
"It was almost like he brake-tested me.
"We had contact; I took advantage of that because I felt it was fair to.
"It was nothing that he and other people haven't done before when there has been no problem.
"Yet if you look further down the order there are people driving into each other and having absolutely no outcome whatsoever.
"If we could understand a bit better as drivers exactly what's allowed and what's not then we might all be able to race a bit better together and not have these upsets that we're still having at the moment."
Huff felt his penalty had denied spectators an entertaining end to the race, which was eventually won comfortably by Lopez ahead of Muller.
"In the first four laps I was struggling, and then the safety car came out and it seemed afterwards that they [Citroen] were really struggling.
"They had some contact and Yvan would have taken advantage of that if he could have, and I'm sure he wouldn't have received a drive-through.
"Once I was ahead [of Muller], I pulled away from him and caught Lopez and the lap I came in for my drive-through I was pushing him through the chicane.
"It's a real shame because I think we definitely could have had a very nice battle with Pechito [Lopez] and unfortunately the fans were robbed of seeing that."
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