TouringCarTimes visits SEAT Sport in Spain

The year 2008 was all about SEAT and their diesel powered Léon. Yvan Muller and Gabriele Tarquini secured the top two positions in the driver standings and SEAT obtained the manufacturers title. A successful result in all aspects for the entire team surrounding SEAT Sport boss Jamie Puig, which was a good reason for TouringCarTimes to take an exclusive look behind the scenes of SEAT Sport in Barcelona, Spain.

On our first look in the garage we saw a half completed SEAT Cordoba Evo 2 World Rally car. “When our mechanics have time left after their regular work we restore this car for the SEAT museum. Our roots are in rallying, in which we were the team to beat in the beginning of the Formula 2 class in the World Rally Championship”, says SEAT Sport press officer Odón Marti with a twinkle in his eyes. The rally sport is still omnipresent here.

After the engagements to the World Rally Championship ended in 2000, SEAT switched to Touring Car racing, in which they’ve been active since 2003. At first in the European Touring Car Championship and currently in the World Touring Car Championship.

“There weren’t real problems in the beginning. Like every other manufacturer we needed some time to become competitive. We had the normal learning process like every other manufacturer needs in every kind of motorsport. That we’ve already claimed a podium with Frank Diefenbacher at Oschersleben in our first year was a very special moment. First we had to understand the Toledo and we didn’t have any experiences on the setup and tracks. After some tests we had found a good base and after a while we were able to fight with BMW and Alfa Romeo.”

Many of the team members have been with SEAT since they raced in the World Rally Championship. “The good thing was that we didn’t need to make special investments in the infrastructure. We still operate from the same building as we did in our rally times”, explains Odón Marti.

The success of SEAT truly has many faces. One of the key figures is Frenchman Franzose Benoit Segur, chief engineer at SEAT Sport. “We wanted to work with Benoit Segur in the past and in the end it finally worked out! We’re very happy that Benoit is with us”, says SEAT Motorsport boss Jaime Puig. Benoit Segur was one of the key figures behind the diesel project, one of the most discussed topics in the World Touring Car Championship last year.

“I think that the general discussion did not point out the exact problem,” says Jamie Puig. “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 at the results, race by race, you will see that our diesel engine quite 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. The key to our success 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 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 entire year.“

SEAT says they have been working on the project since the diesel regulations were introduced. “Like all the other manufacturers”, in the opinion of Puig. “We came to the point in the project where we wanted to determine if we were heading in the right direction.”

“At the time we really started working on the diesel engine seriously another five months passed by before the first test. Six people worked permanently on this project at that time. In the beginning our biggest problem was the soot. In 1997 we started working together with Snobeck in the WRC, because we didn’t have an engine department at SEAT Sport. In the beginning of our ETCC project we also worked together with Oreca. But ever since we’ve gotten the diesel engine we’re manufacturing everything ourselves. Not only the development of the engine, but the revision of it as well.

Although Audi for their Le Mans project and Volkswagen for Dakar already had developed diesel engines, we couldn’t profit from their experience. The base of our engine is a two liter diesel engine, that is being sold in almost all of the models of the VAG concern. However, this engine is very different to the ones that are used for Dakar and Le Mans by Volkswagen and Audi”, SEAT chief race engineer Xavi Serra tells us.

Since the introduction of the diesel engine the continuance of the development for the petrol engines is in the hands of the renowned engine tuner Heinz Lehmann. With one of these developed two liter TFSI engines Tom Coronel even won a race in the WTCC at Okayama, implicating that the petrol engine is still at a very competitive level.

Nevertheless SEAT is already thinking of making a customer version of the diesel engine. “There have been so many changes of the diesel engine rules in the past that made us unable to offer the diesel engine to our customers. We would like to have long standing rules and be able to sell diesel engines to customers. I cannot understand why they change the rules so often”, says Puig.

Another strong factor within the team last season was the reliability. “We’re making almost 95% of the parts in our own factory. We only buy a couple of parts, like condensers from Bosch. There’s no use for us to develop these parts ourselves.”

Due to the consistent quality management, technique related retirements should be something of the past. In this context the loss of the title in 2007 at Macau is still omnipresent, where Yvan Muller retired due to a broken wire and BMW took the title that SEAT hardly could miss.

In the year 2003 SEAT started in Touring Car racing with the Toledo and for the 2005 season they changed to the Léon, the model they’re still using. “The Léon was a clear step forward. But you can’t compare these two cars. The Toledo had one decisive advantage: the aerodynamics. On the other hand, the Léon had good advantages when you look at the chassis and the suspension”, Xavi Serra explains. “In terms of the development we don’t get special support. We had some support at the beginning only.

“With the Toledo that was completely different, because the racing version looked a lot like the street going version. That gave us the chance to exchange synergies. Apart from that we give engineers feedback regularly. When SEAT develops a new car we give them our feedback and when we use new technologies first we do that as well”, Segur continues to say.

2009 will be the fifth year of the Léon in the highest class of Touring Car racing. According to Xavi Serra, “SEAT needs approximately six months for the development of a new car. That means six months from the first drawing until the roll-out of the car. After that it takes about eight months before the car is ready for the first race.”

The showpiece of the manufacturer is the Exeo, a saloon car, which is based on the Audi B6/B7. Jaime Puig says: “Of course we have thought about it if we should develop a new car. We’ve been driving this car since 2005, and slowly it’s getting more difficult to find more time in the car. We participate in the WTCC because we want to sell cars. It’s a question of marketing and the budget if we develop a new car or not.”

There are 100 people working with SEAT Sport, 70 of them are involved in the WTCC project. The other 30 employees work on the support for the so far 150 sold SEAT Léon Cup cars. “For about 60,000 Euros someone can buy a complete car ready to race and it will be maintenance free one season”, says Odón Marti. The concept of the SEAT Léon Supercopa has already been integrated in motorsport in many European countries and ends with the highest step, the SEAT Léon Eurocup which is in the support program of the WTCC.

The winner of each round of that SEAT Léon Eurocup gets the chance to race a SEAT Léon S2000 the following WTCC race, entered by SUNRED. That this is a successful concept is proved by the participation of Tom Boardman and Marin Colak in this year’s WTCC season. Also Oscar Nogues has been quite successful in the rounds he has driven last year in the WTCC. “We will continue with the program in 2009 and I am very proud of our structure for young talented drivers. They learn a lot in the SEAT Léon Eurocup, the cars in that series are not that far from the S2000-cars”, says Jaime Puig.

Last year SEAT Sport supported seven customer Léon’s around the globe. “At the first races there is always a technician and engineer from us present, in order for the costumer to get a basic set up as soon as possible. He will help them understand the car”, says Xavi Serra about SEAT’s concept for costumer relations.

“After the last race at Macau we first had our holidays to charge our batteries”, Xavi Serra explains about the time over the winter. “At the beginning of January we got the cars back from Macau and we had less than four week left to maintain and repair the cars and equipment, so it would be ready for the first race in Curitiba”, says Odón Marti about the time pressure.

When the season starts, SEAT Sport has had about eight days of testing. Every driver will have six days in the car. “Testing is still very important for us. During race weekends we have hardly time to focus on developing the car. There we only have time for some finetuning. That’s why we tested 48 days during 2008.

“The main focus for the team over the winter was changing the engines to fit with the new regulations. The performance of the engine has suffered from that a lot. It will be impossible to get the same performance again”, says Xavi Serra.

Last weekend we have seen that the loss of performance won’t stop the team from winning races. The season has started, which means for the team members that they will be away from home and family for more than 120 days, to try and do the thing they love doing the most: winning races.