SEAT breaks 100 podium barrier at Silverstone

Jason Plato led all three HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship races at Silverstone in his SEAT Leon TDI, and his victory in the first race was SEAT Sport UK’s 100th BTCC podium result. Having given the team its first podium finish with victory in its first ever BTCC race meeting in 2004, it was appropriate that Jason’s victory – his 32nd BTCC race win for SEAT and his 46th of his career – gave the team its 100th podium. That was increased to 101 podium finishes 6.194 seconds later, when Darren Turner took the chequered flag in 3rd. Statistically, SEAT Sport UK has finished 69% of the 147 BTCC races it has contested since its debut season in 2004 on the podium.

Rain at the beginning for the opening race saw all but one of the 23 competing cars start on wet weather tyres, but as the rain got heavier even Tom Onslow-Cole come into the pits to replace the front slicks on his Vauxhall Vectra. Although the last minute change to wet tyres on the grid saw cars run on a dry weather set-up, this suited the Leon TDI, as Jason enjoyed a classic lights to flag victory and Darren came home 3rd. With Fabrizio Giovanardi (Vauxhall Vectra) finishing 5th, Jason had reduced the gap in the BTCC Drivers’ standing from 41 to 30 point.

SEAT Sport UK changed the Leon TDI to a full wet set-up for the remaining two races, and initially everything worked well. Jason started from pole in Race 2 and in Race 3 came from 6th on lap one to lead both races. At half distance, his car lost front end grip and with increasing difficulty turning into corners he dropped down the field in each race and finished 7th and 5th respectively. With Giovanardi finishing 1st and 3rd, the gap at the top of the Drivers’ table had increased to 44 points by the end of the day.

Darren had an equally frustrating final two races. He was lying 3rd in Race 2 when Giovanardi made an aggressive move up the inside at Luffield at the end of the opening lap, forcing Darren’s Leon TDI off the track and through the gravel trap. Giovanardi hit Darren with such force that it badly damaged the car’s front right suspension, which resulted in the car snapping sideways and sliding off into the gravel at Brooklands on the next lap. The car came to rest against Michael Doyle’s Honda Civic, which had just gone off beforehand, and was beached axle deep.

The team did a fantastic job to repair Darren’s car in the short amount of time before Race 3.
He was due to start the final race from 18th on the grid, but as the rain had stopped he and the team decided to gamble and bring him into the pits at the end of the green flag lap for slick tyres to be fitted on the front – which saw him start from the pit lane. But not even a dry line appeared during the 22 lap race and in the slippery conditions Darren did well to keep the Leon TDI on the track, eventually finishing 19th.

Jason Plato (1st/7th/5th): “It was always going to be a struggle to try and pull the points back on Fabrizio Giovanardi, but realistically the Championship’s been over a long time ago. We had a good first race at Silverstone; the Leon TDI performs well when it’s raining, but we changed the set-up for the next two races and it didn’t work in the greasy conditions. We had good pace at the beginning of each race, but then we hit a brick wall. The car wouldn’t turn in at all and I had no grip; I had to ease off at Woodcote where before I could take it flat out and people were just able to drive around the outside of me at Becketts. But once again we’ve learnt a lot about the Leon TDI this weekend. We’ve brought new diesel race technology to the British Touring Car Championship this year and, having developed and raced the car at the same time, the team has done incredibly well to enable us to win so many races. It’s nice to have won eight races so far this season and it’s great to have played my part in giving the team over one hundred podiums, but to be honest I’m not interested in statistics. All I want to do is win races for the team, and we’ll be out there trying to do that again at Brands Hatch. We want to try and finish the season on a high and what’s even more exciting is that I think we’ll be very strong next year.”

Darren Turner (3rd/DNF/19th): “Saturday, as ever, was great, with a fantastic qualifying session for the team, and race one was perfect. Jason got the win and I got third and minimised how many points Giovanardi scored with a good team strategy. Race two was very short and very disappointing. I got fired off the track by Giovanardi on the opening lap and from where I was sitting it seemed very unnecessary, and for me that put paid to race two. We were going to start race three from eighteenth on the grid, but the rain had stopped and had it been at any other circuit it might have been the right decision to come into the pits at the end of the green flag lap and change to front slicks, but the track never dried. I was lapped by half the field and it was a waste of time being out on the track; but at the time we thought it might pay off, but it didn’t work. Race day started well and deteriorated after that, but I’ll take what positives I can from this weekend; we qualified well, race one was great and we worked extremely well as a team.”

Scott Dennis, SEAT UK Motorsport Manager: “When you consider that SEAT Sport UK has been competing in the BTCC for such a relatively short period of time, we are the fifth most successful manufacturer in the fifty year history of the series and during our five years we have set several milestones – another one of which is breaking the hundred podium barrier. We have finished on the podium in six-nine percent of the BTCC races we have contested, and that is a remarkable achievement. And we continue to be competitive; in qualifying at Silverstone we locked out the front row of the grid for the fourth consecutive race weekend and with Jason picking up a point for pole, we were confident of closing the deficit in the Drivers’ standings on Fabrizio Giovanardi. We achieved that in race one, reducing the gap from forty-one to thirty points, but because of the greasy track conditions, which admittedly was the same for everybody, Jason suffered increasing understeer in both races and we lost the points we’d gained. It was still a great team effort and we can move on to Brands Hatch looking forward to ending the season with more race wins.”

Rounds 28, 29 and 30 of the BTCC takes place at Brands Hatch on September 20-21.