Seat made a big impact in their first year, 2004. Clever use of the rules allowed them to score 9 wins, and to finish 2nd only to VX Racing in the teams championship. 7 of those wins came from Jason Plato (more than any other driver) and the other 2 came from Rob Huff who proved himself a great driver in his debut BTCC year.
In 2005 expectations where high with the team expanded to 3 cars they where looking to carry the momentum and challenge for the championship. For a number of reasons this didn't happen, as the cars lacked pace. The main area of complaint was the base weight of the s2000 spec cars, this was deemed to be too heavy in comparison to the faster BTCC spec machines.
In 2006 the team began to run the rapid Seat Leon, which had already won in the World Touring Car Championship. The team
ran two cars, one for Jason Plato and another shared James Thompson and Darren Turner. Whilst the cars where extremely fast the shared second drive meant the onus was purely on Plato to win the championship. Unfortunatley a series of mishaps and accidents, at Thruxton, Donington and Knockhill stumped his challenge for the title.
In 2007 the
team seemed to have learned from 2006 with both Jason Plato and GT ace Darren Turner signed up for the whole year. The team had a much better year, strong qualifying performances and far fewer accidents and mishaps meant the championship wasn't decided until the final race meeting. Unfortunatley not in Plato's favour.
The team goes into 2008 with the same driver line up as previously, but with a change of engine. The will be running the Turbo Diesel version, which has proved very rapid in the World Touring Car Championship.
2008 - Seat Sport UK - Seat Leon TDI
Jason Plato / Darren Turner
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