Jason Plato helped SEAT to win the BTCC Manufacturers’ title in 2006, but the 2001 champion will be hoping to pick up a more personal prize this year.

SEAT starts the 2007 season with the advantage of a season’s development of its S2000-spec Leon – something which none of its title chasing rivals can boast. It should mean that the Spanish marque is able to hit the ground running at Brands Hatch at the end of March, giving Plato the edge over reigning champion Matt Neal and Vauxhall pairing Giovanardi and Chilton.

“You mustn’t forget that we all know the Vauxhall team well”, said Plato. “And we also know how good West Surrey are and also how well Team Dynamics have performed in recent years. We’re ahead of the game at the moment, or so we believe, but it’s a very tough championship to win, as we all know.”

“One of the differences this year is that we haven’t tested with anybody else, Vauxhall haven’t tested with anybody else, so no-one really knows how anyone else is doing.”

In 2006, Plato was the only SEAT Sport UK driver to contest the full season, so there was no question that he was the team’s lead driver. 2007 is likely to be slightly different, with Darren Turner also in the car for all 30 races. Plato’s fiercest competition may well come from within.

“One of the nice things with Darren is that first and foremost he wants to win himself,” acknowledges Jason. “There will be no quarter given this year, which is how it should be and that’s how I like to compete. There is also a level of honesty between us so they’ll be no crooked bats played, it’ll all be very open. Darren’s character and style suits the way the team works. That’s often overlooked but very important; it’s very easy to have someone join the team and upset the equilibrium. I’ve been here a long time and everyone knows how I like to work and Darren fits in very well with that.

“We also have a very similar style in the car, so when Darren uses my set-up and vice versa we tend to dislike the same things and want the same things from the car, so that should help in improving our performance and help us to cover more ground in terms of development. It’s also good to have someone to gain a second opinion from; I’m really looked forward to having him in the team for the full season.”

Teammate or no teammate, Turner is just one more driver that Plato wants to beat: “It would mean an enormous amount to me if I won the Drivers’ Championship again, as 2001 is a long time ago,” said Jason. “It’s all very nice to have good driver statistics in terms of wins to race ratios, but I want titles. I’d love to win the Drivers’ Championship with SEAT as I’ve been involved with the team since day one and it would be ever so special to achieve it together. I can remember when we first sat down for an initial meeting in a hotel in Northampton and we kicked around a few ideas, so it would be very special to see it all the way through to the end. This is the year that we want to win all three – the BTCC Manufacturers’, Teams’ and Drivers’ titles.”

“We definitely have to win all three Championships this year,” adds Jason. “SEAT is the classiest manufacturer on the grid by a long way; it does things with a certain style which is the measure of the paddock. We won the Manufacturers’ Championship last year and now we want the Teams’ and the Drivers’ titles this year too. I think it’s fair to say that if I hadn’t made a few mistakes last year, and the team hadn’t also made a few mistakes, we could have won the Drivers’ Championship as well as the Manufacturers’. We did have our fair share of bad luck along the way but had those mistakes not been made it would have been very close. If we perform at the level that I know we can perform at, and I expect us to perform at, then I know without a doubt that we can make a clean sweep and have a tremendous year.”