SEAT set for partial return in 2012

SEAT Sport are set to return as a customer supply team in 2012 ahead of a potential full factory return for the 2013 World Touring Car Championship season.

The Spanish manufacturer withdrew from the Championship at the end of the 2009 season after claiming the drivers’ and manufacturers’ titles for a second consecutive season. SEAT’s cars have remained in the Championship run by the independent SUNRED team for the 2010/11 seasons, with several key technical personnel moving across as well as drivers Gabriele Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro.

This year, SUNRED started the season with the SEAT 2.0 litre turbodiesel engine, but developed their own 1.6 litre petrol turbo to the WTCC’s new engine regulations which was introduced at the fourth round of the Championship in Hungary. Since then, the cars have been officially homologated as SUNRED cars as the engine isn’t a SEAT approved product.

“We are working to try to find solutions for the customers because this year is a little special,” said Jaime Puig, Director of SEAT Sport to TouringCarTimes. “It’s not SEAT cars, it’s SR cars as they have developed their own engine.”

“In 2012, this León could still be competitive…having a proper engine, and also with some ideas that we have with weight distribution and everything. So for next year it could be competitive, but obviously it’s going to be customer racing (programme), it’s not going to be as much as the Chevrolet is as a factory (effort).”

“We are working to homologate a 1.6 engine, and then we will see for 2013,” added Puig.

Puig praised the efforts of the SUNRED Engineering team this season, which secured second in the independent teams’ title and fifth overall in the standings with Gabriele Tarquini.

“What they are doing this year with what they have is very good, they’re really fighting and really doing a good job, the problem is they have the decision to take the other engine. My opinion was to continue with the diesel until the end of the year.”

Puig, the former head of the FIA Manufacturers’ Committee, criticized the recent shift by some of the major national championships, specifically the Scandinavian and British, which have moved away from Super 2000 to their own concept with the Next Generation Touring Car, which is making touring car racing unattractive to manufacturers.

“What is necessary for us as the manufacturer is that…the rules of the WTCC (are) applied in all the national championships,” said Puig. “Because then you can do something better. When you have a page of customers…you (can) reduce the price, but if it’s only (in the WTCC) and the countries are doing what they want it gets a little difficult. We must do something like the S2000 in rallies.”

“Now with the engine of the World Touring Car Championship, a 1.6 turbo that lasts a whole season, everyone should have the same, and then the possibility’s there for the manufacturer to do the things in the proper way.”

“We know how to do fast cars for a low budget. On the circuit de Catalunya, over 5km the Supercopa León is one second a half slower than the WTCC (León), but it costs five times less. So we know how to do it, but then the championship must decide either WTCC rules, or rules that have all the cars but on a low budget (like Supercopa) but not in the middle.”