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Darren Turner says much of SEAT’s breakthrough in performance with its
new Leon TDI is down to team-mate Jason Plato’s bravery in choice with
car set-up at Donington Park.
Plato and Turner achieved the first victories in the BTCC for the
TDI ten days ago at Donington – the first-ever in the championship for
diesel-power – after effectively using the season’s opening two
fixtures at Brands Hatch and Rockingham as test sessions to learn about
the car.
Turner told BTCC.net: “After Donington
the whole team’s moral is so high at the moment. Brands and Rockingham
were all about learning how the car ticks. We came away from Donington
having really learnt a lot about how the car works now and a lot of it
comes from Jason being quite brave in his direction with the set-up.
It’s worked really well.”
Many are tipping the
TDIs, with their punchier turbo-diesel motors, to set the pace around
the super-fast Thruxton circuit this weekend and Plato and Turner, as
the season progresses, to become ever-stronger forces in the title race.
Turner,
equal fourth on points with Team Halfords’ Gordon Shedden, said: “I
dropped a few more points to Fabrizio (Giovanardi – the championship
leader) at Donington, but definitely feel as if I’m in the hunt.
“I’m
fourth which is considerably better than last season, even though I’ve
had a bit of bad luck with getting knocked off at Brands Hatch, then
binning it at Rockingham – my fault – and then having a pipe come off
the engine at Donington.
“But still it feels like I’m going forward and hopefully that first ‘clean’ weekend will happen at Thruxton.”
Thruxton
is a circuit at which Turner has always revelled – he finished on the
podium there on his BTCC debut with SEAT in 2006 and even right back to
his earliest racing years he was a winner at the Hampshire track, in
Formula Renault in 1996.
He added: “You’re never
going to be perfect all the time, but I think we’ll be strong from the
word go at Thruxton and we’ll only get stronger throughout the weekend.
“On
paper, Thruxton you’d say would be very good for us but you’ve got
those very high-loading corners and most people can see that what we
make up in a straight line we lose a bit in the corners. Hopefully, it
won’t be too detrimental.
“Tyre management is
always critical at Thruxton and the TDI has a higher base weight, plus
we’ll both have success ballast in our cars. The key will be to drive
in a way which doesn’t push the tyres too hard.”
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