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TURNER AND PLATO ON FULL THROTTLE FOR SNETTERTON
27/07/2007
The SEAT Sport UK team is aiming for nothing less than a repeat of last year’s double victory at Snetterton this Sunday, 29th July. The team totally dominated the race meeting at the Norfolk circuit last year, with Jason Plato qualifying on pole and finishing 1st in Race 1 and 2 and 6th in Race 3. Snetterton Circuit was originally built as an RAF World War 2 airfield and used by the United States Army Air Force, opening in 1943 and closing in 1948. Having won at the track each time he has raced there with SEAT Sport UK, notching up four victories in three years, Jason is confident of extending his current 25 point lead in the Drivers’ standings. His team-mate Darren Turner might not have raced at Snetterton since the 1998 Formula Palmer Audi Championship, but since 2004 he has done thousands of miles of testing there with the Aston Martin sports car team and knows the circuit extremely well.
“I regard Snetterton as my local circuit," said Darren, "because for five years I lived in Derham which is twenty minutes away from the track, and I’ve done so much racing and testing there. I haven’t raced at Snetterton since 1998, but in the junior formulas I raced there every year and, because of all the testing in recent years, I’ve done more miles around Snetterton than at any other circuit.
"SEAT really went well there last year. It was a bit of a surprise how well the team performed, so I hope we can do the same again this year. I’ve qualified well this year, but because my position in the Championship hasn’t been so great, I’ve always started a race weekend light, and not carrying success ballast makes a big difference. The engineers have a good idea how the ballast impacts on lap times, and when the calculations are made, Jason and I are very similar. So I know I have the pace, even if I don’t have the luck. At Donington I finished all three races, so I’ll be aiming for three strong race finishes at Snetterton, as I want to score as many points as I can for SEAT in the Manufacturers’ Championship and get myself back up to fifth in the Drivers’ table."
Snetterton is the only circuit where Darren has raced in the snow, when a 1993 Formula First Winter Series race took place, despite the wintry conditions. “There was one line cut through the snow that you had to stay in, as everywhere else was white,” recalls Darren. “I had a great race with Peter Dumbreck, who has since become a very good friend of mine. I tried to overtake him in the snow around the outside of the first corner. It started as a brilliant move, but it didn’t go quite so well half way around the corner!”
Snetterton is the second fastest circuit on the BTCC calendar and it has the longest straight in UK motorsport. With 62% of the lap run at full throttle, it is a tough course for engines and reliability will be the key to securing as many Manufacturers’, Drivers’ and Teams’ Championship points as possible.
TECHNICAL ANALYSIS - Jay Davenport, SEAT Sport UK Design and Test Engineer: “Even though the SEAT Leon, with its hatch back design, struggles more than some of the saloon cars on high-speed tracks owing to its higher drag co-efficient, we managed to take advantage of the car’s phenomenal mid-corner and corner exit speed to lock out the front row last year and finish first and second in the first two races. The lap starts with an up hill run on the Senna Straight towards the first corner, Riches. You approach at over 125mph in sixth gear before braking and dropping down one gear to take the corner at over 100mph. High speed stability is very important here. There is a short run to the third gear Sears Corner, which is one of the most critical corners on the lap as it leads on to 950 metre long Revett Straight.
Corner exit speed is important and good traction is crucial as the cars accelerate to over 140mph at the end of the straight. The Esses are next; the left hand part of The Esses is tricky as you have to brake, down change and turn in at the same time. It is easy to lose the rear of the car, so stability is important here to give the driver confidence to attack as this is one of the best overtaking opportunities on the lap. The second part of The Esses is a second gear right hander that leads to the Bomb Hole – a crater left from a World War 2 bombing raid that is taken at nearly 100mph in fourth gear and requires a car with good damping to absorb the bumps and carry momentum to Coram Curve. Coram is a fifth gear corner taken at over 100mph and again like Riches, high speed stability is paramount in order to achieve a good lap time. Finally, after Coram comes Russell Bend, the scene of a classic last lap battle between Jason and Matt Neal last year in race two; Russell is a second gear chicane where good traction is essential in order to carry speed onto the ascending start/finish straight.”
For a full timetable of events for rounds 19/20/21 of the British Touring Car Championship, go to www.btcc.net
Darren, 34, lives near Banbury in Oxfordshire. Successful in many different categories of motorsport, his most notable and high profile victories have been at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and in the British Touring Car Championship. He's a firm favourite with teams, fans, and media alike from around the world.
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