SEAT Sport UK dominated the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship race meeting at Croft last year, with the SEAT Leon qualifying on pole and scoring two wins, two 2nds, a 3rd and a 5th place finish. As the 2007 BTCC moves into the critical mid-season phase, Jason Plato and Darren Turner will be aiming to repeat that SEAT supremacy when the team returns to the North Yorkshire circuit on June 2/3.

Having moved to the North East when he was four years old, where he lived for the next 12 years, Jason considers Croft as his home circuit and always performs well there. He won two races there in his first season with SEAT Sport UK in 2004, scored a podium in 2005 and finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the three races last year. Jason has this year enjoyed his best start to a BTCC campaign, winning four races – two at Brands Hatch and one at Rockingham and Thruxton – out of nine. He leads the Drivers’ Championship and therefore arrives at Croft with the maximum 45kgs of success ballast.

Darren is currently 6th in the BTCC Drivers’ standings and will start the Croft race weekend without success ballast on his SEAT Leon. Having already qualified 3rd, 1st and 2nd respectively this season, he will be a strong contender for pole position – and having mastered the art of front-wheel drive touring car standing starts, he will be looking for nothing less than his first BTCC race win.

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

Piers Phillips, SEAT Sport Race Engineer: “Croft circuit is quite a challenge for both the drivers and engineers. The wide variety of corners makes achieving a good set-up throughout the lap very difficult. You have the challenge of Hawthorns which is a long adverse camber corner that is vital to the top speed at the end of the back straight, he high speed sweeps of the Jim Clark Esses and then the intricacies of Sunny and the Complex. The surface at Croft always throws up a curved ball as there is the old Tarmac on the original section and the new Tarmac on the newer section. These two road surfaces can change dramatically over the course of the race weekend either as more rubber is laid on them or as the temperature changes. This is an area we look to manage on race day as traction out of the Hairpin and Tower corner can be critical to tyre degradation and longevity.”

DRIVER QUOTES

Jason Plato: “Croft is one of those circuits which will suit the SEAT Leon, so I’m really looking forward to going there are trying to score some big points. The first aim will be to try and stick the car on the front row. Darren should be really fast, and as his car is 45kgs lighter than mine he should have a good chance of qualifying on pole; and if I can be alongside him that will be perfect. We have always performed well at Croft and we need to keep that record going to increase my lead in the Drivers’ standings and keep the pressure on in the Manufacturers’ and Teams’ Championships.”

Darren Turner: “I’ve not raced at Croft since 1998, so it’s a circuit I will have to quickly reacquaint myself with. The track seems to suit the Leon, and as I’m going there with no ballast I’m hopeful of qualifying really well. I’ve done okay in qualifying so far this year and now I’ve sorted out my starts I’m not too worried about that either. My aim will be to finish all three races at Croft, which is something I haven’t done yet this year, and I’ll be trying to finish each one of them on the podium. Jason did that last year in the Leon, so it’s certainly possible.”

CROFT FACT FILE

Darren Turner had the biggest accident of his racing career at Croft in 1997. The track surface had just been relayed and there was a step off the edge of the track – and when he dropped a wheel off the track during pre-race testing, his Formula 3 car bottomed out and, unable to steer, slammed straight on into the crash barriers at one of the fastest right hand corners. It’s the only time in his career that Darren has been knocked unconscious.

Although he was born in Oxford in 1967, Jason Plato lived most of his childhood in the North East of England and was educated at Kings School, Tynemouth in Newcastle Upon Tyne. His father, Tim, worked in the motor trade at the time and accepted a racing kart as a bad debt. Little did he know that this would launch his son on a highly successful career which would make him one of British motorsport’s most charismatic and popular racing personalities.

Piers Phillips, Jason’s Race Engineer, was born and grew up Rothbury in Northumberland, about 70 miles north of Croft. He regards Croft as his home circuit, and raced FF1600 and Formula Renault there himself in the 1990s. “I must admit that Croft is one of the circuits that I look forward to going to as it is a friendly place to race and you always get a large and very enthusiastic crowd,” says Piers. “In football terms, which as a Newcastle United season ticket holder are obviously important to me, I suppose myself and Jason are playing at home this weekend. I will probably have about twenty or thirty friends coming to the race weekend to help cheer us all on.”

The first ever meeting of the SEAT Cupra Championship took place at Croft in 2003, marking the competition debut of the SEAT Sport UK team. The first race was won by Stefan Hodgetts.

The first BTCC race took place at Croft in 1997 – meaning this year the circuit is celebrating a decade of top tin-top action at the venue.

Since the last BTCC race meeting at Thruxton, Darren Turner has been racing in the USA – taking a Ferrari F430 to GT2 class victory at the American Le Mans Series race at the Miller Motorsports Park in Salt Lake City, Utah.