Photo: WTCC Media

SEAT to continue customer programmes in 2013

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SEAT Sport will be back in 2013 supporting customer programmes as it has been during the 2012 season, with a number of teams expected to contest the venerable SEAT León WTCC.

SEAT last ran a works team in the WTCC in 2009, but has maintained a presence on the grid ever since, with SUNRED Engineering running the marque’s cars independently in 2010 and 2011, this year they were joined by Special Tuning Racing and the Lukoil Racing Team.

The León first joined the grid in 2005, and has had two significant upgrade packages in the interim. The first was the diesel package introduced in 2007, which turned the León into the Championship winning car in 2008 and 2009 with Yvan Muller and Gabriele Tarquini.

This year, a number of upgrades to brakes and bodywork, as well as a new 1.6 turbo engine built by ORECA was introduced, which saw Gabriele Tarquini grab pole position at the opening round of the season, breaking Chevrolet’s 13 race pole position streak.

With the FIA looking to introduce new technical regulations for a soon as 2014, SEAT won’t be introducing a new car to the current Super 2000 rules next year, and will continue with their customer programme with more upgrades to the León WTCC. Special Tuning Racing and SUNRED Engineering are planning to continue, and are expected to be joined by FIA GT1 champions Münnich Motorsport, which would run the cars used by the Lukoil Racing Team this season.

“We shall investigate what we can do with this car and support the customers with this,” said SEAT Sport Director Jaime Puig to TouringCarTimes. “The engine has been very good, it has lasted all year. At the start we had our doubts, but now we know it’s reliable.”

Looking ahead to 2014, when Citroën are earmarked to join the Championship along with another manufacturer to join Honda, Puig says nothing is set for the Spanish manufacturer yet.

“So far, for central SEAT, officially we don’t have any plan to enter. We have always said we will support the customers. For 2014, we have to wait for what the rules are, but we have a nice base to work on because the new León is on the road and it’s very good, but we have to see.”