SEAT Sport UK created a real stir among the paddock today when it unveiled its new Leon touring car in British Touring Car colours during the SEAT Race Day at Knockhill for Rounds 22, 23, and 24 of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship. Its appearance coincided with the car’s world racing debut in Oschersleben, Germany, where it was driven today by Jordi Gene in the FIA World Touring Car Championship. There was also a great deal of excitement out on the Knockhill circuit as torrential downpours of heavy rain made for a day of thrilling race action.

Jason finished 6th in the first race and made several changes to improve his car’s mechanic grip before the start of race two. The changes greatly helped as Jason was up to 4th half way through the race before being hit sideways by Colin Turkington who was trying to overtake. Jason’s great car control prevented him from spinning off and he finally finished in 8th.

The third and final race of the day saw Jason at the heart of all the action. Starting from 3rd Jason was up to 2nd by lap two when he collided with Gareth Howell on the exit of the hairpin. Howell was trying to overtake and he hit Jason so hard that it knocked the steering wheel out of his hand. Coming out of the corner Jason was checking the steering wasn’t damaged and with a misted up side window he had not seen Howell come up alongside and inadvertently turned in on him, sending him sideways. Later on in the race Jason was in 4th behind Matt Neal and Yvan Muller when Muller suddenly slowed with engine problems. Running nose-to-tail, Neal ran into the back of Muller and Jason ran into the back of Neal, slowing them all down. Howell tried to take advantage of the situation with a banzai move off the racing line, launching his car into the Chicane at an odd angle and collided with Jason taking them both off. Jason recovered salvaging a 4th place finish but Howell came hurtling back onto the track and collected the back of Luke Hines’ car, breaking the rear suspension and ending his race.

Rainmeister Luke was not too upset as he’d had a storming drive in both Rounds 22 and 23. He was the star of the team in Round 22 when in atrociously wet conditions he started from 10th on the grid, dropped to 13th after James Kaye hit him on the opening lap and then charged to 7th at the finish – overtaking Rob Collard and Gavin Smith in the last four laps. He followed this with another strong drive in Round 23 to finish 5th.

James Pickford’s day turned out to be pretty much like the weather; dismal. He rolled during free practice on Saturday morning badly damaging his Toldeo Cupra. He was perfectly okay and the SEAT Sport UK team did a fantastic job to repair the car in time for qualifying and he was able to qualify in 12th. Halfway through the opening race he suffered transmission problems and was forced to park up at the entrance to the pit lane. Starting from the back of the grid in Round 23 James charged through the field ending up in a multi-car battle for 10th place (pole in the final race due to the regulations). It was short lived as he was hit from behind by Fiona Leggate and spun off into retirement. His final race brought more bad luck when he spun out of the race on lap 21 due to problems with the steering caused by an earlier coming together with Dan Eaves.

Jason said: “Our car’s normally very good in the wet at circuits like Donington and Silverstone, flowing circuits, but I think this kind of circuit with its stop, point and squirt layout doesn’t really suit the Toledo. We have improved the car over the weekend and we’ve gone in the right direction but it’s just not been a great race weekend for us.

“I think Gareth Howell was bang out of order when he tried to overtake me. I’d turned into the hairpin and bang he hit me so hard he knocked the steering wheel out of my hand. I didn’t know what had happened and the next thing I know I was checking the steering to see if everything’s all right and he’s there and I’ve hit him and he’s gone off.

“The incident later on with Yvan Muller was all a bit of an unfortunate racing incident really. He had slowed and was defending and it caused a bit of confusion. Matt Neal didn’t know what was going on and he went into the back of Muller and I went into the back of him. I tried to get out of the way and went one way as I was about to get sandwiched and Matt came back over and that was it I hit him. And just after that Howell came charging back into me again, I don’t know what the hell that was all that about! My car was absolutely battered to bits.

“The team’s done a great job today. James had a huge accident yesterday and Luke’s had an engine change over the weekend and everyone’s worked tremendously hard under massively difficult conditions, as the weather’s been fowl. Over each race my car’s improved and the team has done a fantastic job on all the cars. We’re just at a circuit that doesn’t seem to suit our car, but the team has worked so hard and I’m really pleased with everyone’s efforts this weekend. ”

James said: “I thought we’d come here and get a good result, but it just hasn’t happened. All three of us are on the limit but no matter what we do we just can’t seem to find the pace here because our car doesn’t really suit this circuit. My car’s been through a lot this weekend. It’s been on its roof during free practice, suffered transmission failure during the first race, then in the second I was driving for tenth position and got fired off and finally in the last race I was attacked by Dan Eaves twice in one corner which caused terrible oversteer and I ended up losing the rear as I turned into the first corner and spun off. So that’s that really. It’s hard to take any positives away from the weekend as the weather’s been really bad and we’ve had so much bad luck, but I have to say that my team of mechanics and engineers has worked tremendously hard all weekend. It’s just a shame they couldn’t have been rewarded with some better results. ”

Luke said: “I had quite a good start in the third race and I tried to get inside of Jason Hughes and we both collided and ran onto the kerb and I lost about three or four places. My car improved a lot towards the middle of the race and I had a nice battle with Colin Turkington and I managed to get in front of him and pull away and things were looking good. I then came up behind what looked like four cars trying to go into the Chicane, I was quite happy to be behind it as I knew that a lot of people were going to go off, which they did. Two or three drivers went off on the kerb and I went up the inside and then Gareth Howell for some reason came back onto the track and hit the back of me and broke my suspension. It’s a shame because it was looking pretty good and I was fourth for about two seconds and then it all went wrong.

“My second race was good. I finished fifth and there were five of us on the last lap battling for the lead so I’ve been pretty happy this weekend - it’s just a shame I couldn’t have finished the day with a podium. I enjoy driving in the wet and I think that stems back to my karting days because when I was younger we used to race all through the winter. I’ve really enjoyed racing this weekend, we’ve definitely got the pace in the car and we just need a bit of luck. ”