Nope, concerted effort, focusing on the two cars only. As they punned at Autosport, the bar bill for Plato & Thommo, stretched them for the third car. 
I've not seen them widely advertised? And as far as I know at least one of them went back to Spain, possibly two, one we've heard is possibly going to end up somewhere else, possibly as a display.
I know Tom Boardman made no secret he wanted to purchase one for a privateer BTCC entry, but that was rejected for whatever reason, as far as i know??
He's now supposed to be looking at entering the Spanish Supercopa series, which should be good, the new Leon racer looks a nice bit of kit.
I know Tom Boardman made no secret he wanted to purchase one for a privateer BTCC entry, but that was rejected for whatever reason, as far as i know??
He's now supposed to be looking at entering the Spanish Supercopa series, which should be good, the new Leon racer looks a nice bit of kit.
Just something I read on crash.net the other week mentioning that they had two cars available, plus an endorsement from Jason Plato.
http://www.crash.net/news_view~t~Interest-shown-in--competitive--Toledos-~cid~10~id~124937.htm
http://www.crash.net/news_view~t~Interest-shown-in--competitive--Toledos-~cid~10~id~124937.htm
Cool, I had not heard this, very interesting, would be good to see some extra SEATs on the BTCC grid
ZBOYD said:
Tom was not refused - his dada decided they couldn't quite make the budget to do BTCC properly - and at Tom's age he doesn't want to be just another privateer making up the numbers to enjoy himself
Rejected not refused, little bit of difference in those two words, I was only communicating what had been floating around the rumour trees.
Rejected is in fact what happened then. Rejected by Tom's dad / team.
But cheers for clarifying.
Rejected is in fact what happened then. Rejected by Tom's dad / team.
But cheers for clarifying.
zboyd - I just thought that your post made it sound like Seat had 'rejected' the idea which is not what I had heard, that's all. The fact is that Seat do appear to have a couple of cars available to the right buyer at the right price - but I would also expect that they will not want to pass them on to a team or driver without the funds and skills to make a good fist of running the cars.
No i agree. I didnt phrase it right really, but i did add 'for whatever reason'?? If i meant SEAT precisely I would of been clearer.
As the off season of the sport is such a rumour mill of sorts anyway, often you need to blur what you say to make a point. At least i can't be flamed here.
As the off season of the sport is such a rumour mill of sorts anyway, often you need to blur what you say to make a point. At least i can't be flamed here.
According to www.brandshatch.co.uk Plato is there in his BTCC car, and Thompson in his WTCC car. With the Daewoo of Larini.
I presume they are using the indy circuit so as not to use up any of their GP circuit days, which would still make it useful for both Seats but questionable for the Chevrolet.
I presume they are using the indy circuit so as not to use up any of their GP circuit days, which would still make it useful for both Seats but questionable for the Chevrolet.
Definitely Indy Circuit according to the Chevy press release. Still, it's the first proper test for their 2006 car as well, so I suppose it's valuable running time, between the blizzards and the sleet.
Some pics from the test. Car looks great finally on a race track. Top work by the SEAT Sport UK folks 
BTCC Leon Test Pics
BTCC Leon Test Pics
SEAT Sport UK pics. From the other images, i just downloaded a few for the moment, only seems to be JP and Darren Turner with JP in the car it seems.
They seem to be currently uploading, there are several more, they are also uploading some staff pics now.
JP's race engineer for 2006 will be Piers Phillips, who was race engineer for James Pickford last year.
With Nick Clipson running Thommo's / Darren Turners, he looked after Hine's car last year.
And they have a new race team manager Doug Bebb, who is a highly experienced race engineer, working previously in F1 with Williams, as well as a long career in motorsport and involved in many of the world’s leading motor racing programmes with MG, Chrysler, BMW and Toyota for example and achieved outright victories at Le Mans and Daytona together with numerous class and championship wins.
BTCC.net has just posted a news article about the test.
http://www.btcc.net/artman/publish/article_808.php
Scott Dennis is qouted:
“I haven’t got a clue how we’ll square up to the others. I don’t know what they’ve been up to. Maybe at the end of our testing programme I’ll be able to give you an indication. The build quality and what we’ve seen so far from the Leon is a credit to our colleagues in Spain. We’ll have to see...
“Learning from our previous two seasons, we know we have to give 100 per cent 100 per cent of the time, minimise the mistakes we’ve made and focus on the job in hand.”
JP's race engineer for 2006 will be Piers Phillips, who was race engineer for James Pickford last year.
With Nick Clipson running Thommo's / Darren Turners, he looked after Hine's car last year.
And they have a new race team manager Doug Bebb, who is a highly experienced race engineer, working previously in F1 with Williams, as well as a long career in motorsport and involved in many of the world’s leading motor racing programmes with MG, Chrysler, BMW and Toyota for example and achieved outright victories at Le Mans and Daytona together with numerous class and championship wins.
BTCC.net has just posted a news article about the test.
http://www.btcc.net/artman/publish/article_808.php
Scott Dennis is qouted:
“I haven’t got a clue how we’ll square up to the others. I don’t know what they’ve been up to. Maybe at the end of our testing programme I’ll be able to give you an indication. The build quality and what we’ve seen so far from the Leon is a credit to our colleagues in Spain. We’ll have to see...
“Learning from our previous two seasons, we know we have to give 100 per cent 100 per cent of the time, minimise the mistakes we’ve made and focus on the job in hand.”
Curious how www.brandshatch.co.uk say that JT is testing his WTCC car, probably some numpty in the press room
I heard on crash.net yesterday that JT was driving the WTCC car. Maybe as it's not the BTCC, it's not in the SEAT Sport UK press release. Car's looking amazing.
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