Rob Huff and Andrew Watson both joined TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK for their first year in the Toyota Corolla GR Sport. Huff, a World Touring Car Champion and race winner in the BTCC, added multiple wins to his resume with some stellar performances on his return, whilst Watson would also improve after his Jack Sears Trophy winning season, as he took a season-best finish of fifth and impressively scored points in 25 of the 30 contests. Take a look through the highlights of the team’s season:
Donington Park
After starting race day last due to not competing in qualifying, Huff would battle his way forward before finding himself on pole for the final race of the opening event.
The #12 would go on to show fantastic racecraft against eventual winner, Aiden Moffat, as well as previous and current champions Jake Hill, Ash Sutton, Tom Ingram and Colin Turkington. The eventual result was a sixth-place finish, as the #12 put on a show in his first full-time race weekend return to the BTCC.
Snetterton
Without a shadow of a doubt Toyota-driven teams' best event of the season. Not only did the final bout of the day produce Huff's first victory in the series for 20 years, but also Watson's highest finish of the season.
For Round 9 of the 2024 campaign, not many would have thought that 14th-starting Huff would be the eventual race winner. After what had been a dry-wet-dry-wet-dry day, the #12 took the gamble to start on dry tyres on what was a, at the time, wet circuit. Throughout the drying race Huff would pull off move after move before taking his victory at the scene of his last in 2004.
Croft
Rob Huff put on yet another scintillating show in the second bout of the day in North-Yorkshire to stand on the second step of the podium. After starting the race in seventh, the Cambridge-born driver ascended the order in fast fashion, finding himself in fifth after the opening lap.
It all could have been taken away after fighting with four-time champions Ash Sutton and Colin Turkington, which saw the combined eight championships come together, with the latter on the grass and unable to slow finding himself millimetres from collecting Huff's Toyota Corolla GR Sport.
The seventh-place starter then found his Corolla duelling with Josh Cook. The Toyota duo found themselves in one of the battles of the season with an incredible side-by-side move for the lead heading through the esses.
Knockhill
After what had proved to be a difficult weekend up to that point, the TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK team founds its form in the final race north of the border. Huff led the bout from lights-to-flag, but that doesn’t tell the full story of yet another hard earned triumph.
Ingram would find himself passing Árón Taylor-Smith on the opening lap to go on to a constant attack of the #12. Despite the obvious speed differential on the day, Huff defended in fine style as the 2022 Champion could not find a way through. After the defensive masterclass, Huff would double the 2023 wins total and equal the team’s number of podiums from the previous year, and all that with one less car out on track.
