Promising diesel BTCC debut for SEAT Leon TDI

SEAT Sport UK's Leon TDI made a promising race debut in the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch, when Jason Plato took the series' first manufacturer-entered diesel powered car to two podium results and team-mate Darren Turner set the fastest lap of a race.

With time for only 150 miles of testing before the opening round of the BTCC, SEAT Sport UK arrived at Brands Hatch with lot of untried data to experiment with. Having qualified 4th and 6th , the team's aim on race day was to try and unearth a good balance, be competitive and possibly challenge for a podium finish. Both Jason and Darren tried very different set-ups in all three races, and the final race in particular was a gamble, based on what looked potentially good on computer and what the experienced drivers felt might work.

In the opening race, Jason and Darren finished line-astern in 3rd and 4th places, with Jason giving the Leon TDI a podium on its BTCC race debut. With a heavy mid-race shower of rain making track conditions extremely slippery, it was a challenging maiden race - and one in which the Leon TDI showed its race winning potential.

Race 2 saw Jason again finish 3rd , while Darren set the fastest lap of the race - his 49.491 being just 0.3 seconds short of the Brands Hatch Indy Circuit lap record - on his way to 5th overall.

Finding it difficult to make a serious overtaking challenge on the cars ahead, both Jason and Darren gambled on set- up in the final race - the theory being that if it didn't work, they'd probably not lose too much ground anyway, and if it did work they'd have a far better chance of achieving a better result. Unfortunately, Darren's race was over soon after it had begun, when Gordon Shedden hit him from behind at Druids on the opening lap and his Leon TDI ended its race in the gravel trap. Despite the disappointment of failing to start to season with a points-scoring finish in all three races, Darren left Brands Hatch with more points that he'd earned in the opening race weekend last year (15 points compared to 9). After a Safety Car period following a big crash involving Tom Onslow-Cole (Vauxhall), Jason had a lonely final race to 5th , maintaining a 100% finishing record.

Jason Plato (3rd /3rd /5th ): "The team has done a fantastic job today. The Leon TDI is very new, we only did 150 miles of testing before we came here, and on its BTCC debut the car has proven to be one hundred percent reliable. I've finished all three races in the points, and all things considered, if someone had offered me two thirds and a fifth before the racing had started I'd have probably taken them. I've been pretty demanding as a driver today and changed the car an awful lot for each race. It's been a massive workload for the engineers and mechanics, and everyone in the team has been extremely focused, professional and on top of their game today. We've learnt a lot about the Leon TDI because we've gambled on set-up and experimented far more than we'd normally dare do on a race weekend. We know that there is good potential with the Leon TDI, and we're going to have to continue to work hard to unlock it."

Darren Turner (4th /5th /DNF): "We started this weekend on the back foot a little bit because of our limited pre-season testing, but I was very pleased with the performance of the car and with my results in race one and race two. Race three should have been another collection of points, but it wasn't to be. It's just unfortunate that the race was over for me before it had really begun. As a team we are very pleased with this weekend's performance - we've got a lot of work to do, but we were in the top five fighting for position and we could have easily found ourselves fighting for a top position. The Leon TDI has run like clockwork all weekend, so reliability isn't an issue and at different stages during the weekend we have shown that we have some good pace in the car. It's now a case of looking at the data, doing the work and making sure that the car works well in qualifying and in all three races. It's been a very encouraging start."

Rounds 4, 5 and 6 of the BTCC take place at Rockingham Motor Speedway on April 12/13.