Taylor to Make SEAT Race Debut - Two Years
After First Test!
28 April 2005
Henry Taylor, who took part in all the pre-season tests
for the 2003 SEAT Cupra Championship but never raced, will finally
get on the
grid when his challenge for the 2005 Smartnav SEAT Cupra Championship
begins at Thruxton this weekend.
The highly-rated 25-year old driver
from Netherfield in East Sussex has once again teamed up with Wednesbury-based
Total Control Racing, who will run his Mortgage Strategy magazine /
PAA Leads-backed Leon Cupra R.
Henry has a lot of saloon
car racing experience, having convincingly won the 1997 Peugeot 306
GTi Championship by winning nine out of the 11 races. His prize
then was a test in a Peugeot 406 Super Touring Car, where he was quicker
than works driver Tim Harvey. He has also twice finished runner-up
in the Junior category of the Ford Fiesta Championship (1998 and ’99)
and finished 3rd in the 1998 Vectra Winter Series. His introduction
to Total Control Racing came in 2000, when he joined the team for the
final six rounds of the Renault Clio Cup and led every race with them
before finishing 3rd in the series.
A sponsor withdrew on the
eve of the very first SEAT Cupra Championship race meeting, leaving
Henry without the funds to run his Leon Cupra R. He bounced back
from that disappointment later in the year by contesting four rounds
of the 2003 British GT Championship and gave Morgan its first pole
for 40 years (at Thruxton) and finished 2nd in the Empire Trophy
race at Silverstone.
Having not competed at all last year,
this weekend’s race at Thruxton will be Henry’s first race
for almost 20 months.
Henry said: “The SEAT Cupra Championship
is just what British motorsport needs, because the prize fund offers
a real chance of winning some serious money. It’s a shame
I missed the first two rounds at Donington because I like that circuit
and used to hold the lap record there in Clios. We’re going to
Thruxton with no testing whatsoever and on Saturday it’s straight
into two qualifying sessions and a race. I really hope it rains because
I’ve always gone well in the wet at Thruxton, but realistically
this weekend is probably a case of damage limitation. I’d be
happy to come away with a couple of points and be in good shape to
attack from the next race at Brands Hatch onwards. My aim is
to win the Cupra title and even though it’s a tall order I think
I can do it. When I teamed up with Total Control Racing towards
the end of the 2000 Clio series I gained one hundred points on the
rest of the field in just five races, so it can be done.”
Sam
Edwards, the 21-year old son of touring car racer Terry Edwards, will
make his SEAT Cupra Championship debut at Thruxton this weekend in
a Triple R-prepared Leon Cupra R. The young Aylesbury driver
raced in the Formula BMW UK Championship last year and contested the
Formula Palmer Audi Championship in 2003.
See series
calendar for SEAT
Cupra Championship 2005
Related Story 01.04.2005 - Breeze
Fastest in Pre-Season Cupra Testing
