Double BTCC Podium for SEAT at Brands Hatch

06 June 2005

SEAT Sport UK came away from Rounds 7, 8 and 9 of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship today at Brands Hatch with a well deserved double podium finish. Set-up problems hampered the team throughout the weekend with all three SEAT Toldeo Cupras struggling to find the grip from their tyres, yet Jason Plato finished Round 8 in 2nd and Round 9 in 3rd reflecting the level of hard work put in by the team. A 4th place in Round 7 saw Jason complete his highest points scoring race weekend of the season so far - which given the circumstances was quite an achievement.

James Pickford set the fastest lap in the opening race of the day and led a round of the BTCC for the first time in Round 9. Round 8 wasn’t quite so fortunate for the Macclesfield driver when an incident between Colin Turkington and Rob Collard saw him hit from behind trying to avoid the chaos and run into his team mate Luke Hines. They both spun into the gravel trap but James was fortunate enough to be able to continue to bring his car home in 8th to go with his 9th place in Round 7 and 8th in Round 9.

Luke didn’t make it out of the gravel in Round 8 and as fate would have it he suffered another unlucky retirement in the final race of the day when a suspension bolt broke sending him straight on at Paddock Hill Bend. Luke wasn’t too unhappy with his weekend however as he’d earlier followed Jason home in Round 7 to finish 5th, his highest placed finish driving the SEAT Toldeo Cupra.

Jason said: “With the tangle we’ve been in this weekend with the set-up and not being able to make the tyres work we’ve had a pretty successful time in terms of points. We’ve had a second, a third and a fourth, so from that point of view we’ve got away with a difficult race weekend. It’s a bit disappointing that we know we should be doing better than we are and we don’t know why we’re not, we just haven’t seemed to be able to make the tyres work here. All I know is that we put last year’s set-up on the car, which was very good here last year and when we ran on tyres which we’d raced on at Donington we were quick but when we put this new batch of tyres on we were nowhere and the car was like a dog’s dinner to drive – something’s very strange but no one knows what’s causing it.”

James said: “I had an okay start in the final race from pole but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to keep the lead for long because I was struggling to keep the car on the apex of the corners due to the same understeer problems I had earlier. I kept understeering wide and that allowed people to come along side me which was really frustrating. To take the positives away from the weekend I had a fastest lap in the first race with a car that I felt uncomfortable in so if we can make it right then we know there’s a lot more speed to come. We know we’ve got the pace it just didn’t seem to come together this weekend. I’m looking forward to Oulton Park as it’s my home track and I have a lot of support there but we need to put in some hard work between now and then to produce the results we want.”

Luke said: “It’s been quite a tough day for me. I got spun out of race two because of someone else’s incident and a suspension bolt went in the final race and I ended up in the gravel again. I could feel the car vibrating and I thought it was just the pick up from the tyres as you run round the outside, but then I went to turn into Paddock Hill Bend and the car just went straight on. It’s just one of those things really, had I kept going I think I could have got a top five position as the car was running really well.  I definitely had the pace this weekend but was just a bit unlucky. Fifth in the first race was a good result and Jason’s proved that there’s much more speed to come so with some hard work things are looking good for Oulton Park.”

See series calendar for British Touring Car Championship 2005

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