Plato to race new Leon for SEAT in the 2006

[tris]

if the teams run 3 cars but only 2 score points then wont the non points scoring car just be a blocker?

 

[m0rk]

or just not bothered to be run I would suspect

Say it costs £3m to run SEAT Sport UK per year, you could lose less than a third of that by running one less car (so say 25%?) so that's a saving of 750k.... which isn't bad

and as BTCC is trying to get people to come & race, not the other way around this time where they wanted to bulk out the existing people they have accepted that both SEAT's & Vx's pockets aren't *that* deep.

 

[Leon]

I think the new rule was more to do with the way the car's are nominated and how many can be nominated to score points.


I doubt Seat would save much by not running a third car. Firstly, I thought Hines in 2005 brought money to the team (£300k ?) and then of course economies of scale come into play like transport to circuits etc.

 

[Muzorewa]

they have accepted that both SEAT's & Vx's pockets aren't *that* deep.

But how deep are Seat Sport's pockets to put out a 6-car team for the WTCC? Or do Seat Sport Spain see the marketing potential of "World Touring Car Champions 2006" plastered in the back windows of next year's cars, like endless earlier Ibizas had "F2 World Rally Champions" in the back window, rather more promising than Seat Sport UK see the benefits of "British Touring Car Champions 2006", or are budgets that tight? Surely the actual cost of a third car is nowhere near a third of the overall cost, especially if the driver of that car brings a wedge to the party as well. Not to mention the immesurable TV mileage in another car with your image emblazoned all over it

 

[IainW]

As far as I know the proposed new rule is that only the top two cars from a manufacturer would score points. So that wouldn't be a disadvantage as such if you were running a 2 or 3 car operation. Much fairer than the current rules which means you must nominate your two points-scoring cars at the driver's briefing on the Saturday and if one of the nominated cars comes lower down the order than your third car which hasn't been nominated, then that's just hard cheese. Expect to see Gavin Smith racing the third Vauxhall again. Allegedly he shelled out not far from £500k for the drive in 2005, outbidding his rivals by a mile.

Are SEAT sponsoring the Mondello Park meeting next year? Only someone (a notorious rumour monger who is more often wrong than right) said on another forum that Jonathan Fildes (2003 Clio champ) would drive a SEAT there as part of his prize for winning the Irish Supercar Championship this year. Dunlop gave an entry to the Mondello BTCC races to the winner.

 

[m0rk]

I can't see SEAT UK funding a SEAT IE event...

 

[Muzorewa]

And I suppose the third driver, even if not scoring manufacturer's points, can still be scoring driver's points. It's got to be worth it if that driver is almost self-financing. In a small-ish grid you can get massive exposure.

 

[Muzorewa]

As far as I know the proposed new rule is that only the top two cars from a manufacturer would score points. So that wouldn't be a disadvantage as such if you were running a 2 or 3 car operation. Much fairer than the current rules which means you must nominate your two points-scoring cars at the driver's briefing on the Saturday and if one of the nominated cars comes lower down the order than your third car which hasn't been nominated, then that's just hard cheese.

I think that still favours a 3-car team. It's even if both cars of a 2-car team run all weekend without any crashes/reliability problems, but with a 3-car team you can afford one of your cars to be punted off or crash and still have two cars score points. If you had to pre-nominate your point-scroring cars then you're even with a 2-car team.

 

[Timthebrief]

Why don't they just carry across the rules from the world of three day eventing (thats 1 Horsepower each)? Four team members ride for each national team and at the end of the events the worst point score is dropped and the three others count towards the team trophy.

On same principle top two BTCC finishers score the points but you have a blocker/spare/nerf fodder/ individual glory hunter or whatever in the running as well

 

[andyb]

But, if they have a spare Toledo, its still elligiable to race in 2006, its only from 2007 that the rules limit the manufacturers to racing only cars that are commercially availble in European dealerships.

I suspect thats probably only for Works supported teams. I'm sure they wont have that rule for indies, mad if they do, I thought they wanted to increase numbers.

How many chassis do SS UK have. I assume its 4or5 (they have one static dont they). Plus there must be at least the same again from SS Spain and the independents in the WTCC, so thats quite a few chassis to fill up the privateers in the UK and WTCC

 

[m0rk]

2 of the 3 'cars' are going back to spain.

the static car isn't a race chassis - and I'm not sure if they have a spare or not.

 

[IainW]

According to a reliable source on the btcc.net forum. Darren Turner (ex-McLaren test driver) has signed for SEAT Sport UK, but it's unclear if this is for the whole season or just the four meetings James Thompson can't attend.

 

[m0rk]

he's done some driving too - no FWD stuff yet

http://www.speedsportmag.de/motorsport/race_driver_biography.php?sprache=en&wahl=t&driver=794

 

[andyb]

wow! Darren Turner!!!! If thats the case, thats a great choice by SEAT. He's very highly regarded by the Engineers at McLaren.

So, is Tommo doing some of the UK series then?

 

[m0rk]

I think that's rumours

I can't see that a 2nd seat (not SEAT) is a good plan since if they miss a round, they come back with full ballast.

so you're not competitive until race 2.

 

[tris]

really looking forward to the new season
i saw darren at le mans last year
they would have won if it was not for reliability problems
not bad tho as the db9 was right out the box

 

[IainW]

I think that's rumours

I can't see that a 2nd seat (not SEAT) is a good plan since if they miss a round, they come back with full ballast.

so you're not competitive until race 2.

I think the ballast applies to the car though and not the driver, so if they share it between them for 10 meetings, they won't get hit by that ruling. Makes sense to me if it works like that. No offence to James Pickford and Luke Hines, but if you're going to use someone like James Thompson in 6 races, then you'll need someone of a similar calibre to do the other 4 so the level of performance is fairly similar.

 

[Muzorewa]

So is the Thompson/Turner car the second car or a third one?

Presumably they need to announce whatever they are doing in the next few days to get set for the Autosport show

 

[ZBOYD]

They announced Luke last year at Autosport, I would o fthoguht it makes sense to make your big media announcements at the show. Doesn't effect the public days as they start Saturday.

Me and m0rk are there on Thursday, notes in hand, camera primed.

 

[racingdad]

looks to me like somwonw let the cat out of the bag.....