Exclusive interview with SEAT boss Puig

SEAT has been the focus of attention in the FIA World Touring Car Championship after dominating the 2008 season, taking the drivers, manufacturers and team title. The success has not been the only focus of attention for the team. Being the only competitors in WTCC using a diesel engine, a lot of attention has been focused on the difference between the petrol and diesel engines. TouringCarTimes met up with the man behind the successful team, SEAT Motorsport boss Jamie Puig for an exclusive interview on all the hot topics.

There has been a hot discussion regarding the introduction of the diesel engine in the WTCC, what are your thoughts on that?

“I think that the general discussion did not point out the exact problem. The diesel engine is not better compared to the petrol engine. The diesel engine is a very “green” engine. It has got a particle filter and less emissions. So it is environmentally friendly. But Seat Sport was the better team during the 2008 season. If you have a look on the results, race by race, you will see that our diesel engined engines often wasn’t the fastest. For example, at the Macau final all works teams started with the same weight and we were not fastest.”

“If you look at the basics of the FIA WTCC rules, the BMW is the fastest car, the Chevrolet is second fastest and the Seat the third fastest car. I’ve said the whole year that we aren’t the fastest. The key was the team and the drivers. The FIA had a very difficult job because all the other teams were against us and tried to stop the diesel engine. We have won the championship but it is too easy to say that it was only because of the diesel engine. Our team worked very hard the whole year. Sometimes we had luck and the others not, but sometimes the other manufacturers didn’t work as a team. I am very proud of our team and there will not be any major changes for 2009, because there is nothing to change!”

Read the entire interview here!