Experience v newcomers in the SEAT Cupra opener

A tantalising mix of experienced Leon Cupra racers like Carl Breeze, Daniel Welch and Freddy Nordstrom and rapid newcomers such as Martin Byford, Robert Lawson and Andrew Herron, makes this year’s SEAT Cupra Championship one of the most open ever.  Together with a prize fund in excess of £250,000 and a Champion’s title- winning prize drive of a fully funded race weekend with SEAT Sport UK, the opening two rounds at Brands Hatch on Sunday 30th  March, 2008 are eagerly anticipated.

Winter testing has been intensive, with new team and driver combinations doing more pre-season miles than ever before.  Byford, the 2007 Clio Champion, has been ultra quick in his Z Speed Racing Leon, unofficially breaking the lap record at Brands Hatch in February. Not to be out done, Herron bounced back from a 115mph testing accident at Donington Park to also get under the Brands Hatch lap record in March.  If testing times are a guide to the season ahead, Herron and his JHR Developments stable-mate Robert Lawson, who finished 9th  and 3rd  respectively in last year’s Clio Cup, also look set to be a team that will be series front runners.

Meanwhile Breeze, Welch and Nordstrom will be hoping that their experience in the SEAT Cupra Championship will give them an early edge.  Breeze won three races and finished 3rd  last year, while Welch finished 5th  in last season’s SEAT Cupra Championship, with wins at both final races at Thruxton.  They will be joined in a three car Welch Motorsport team by former Formula Vauxhall Junior Championship pilot Jeremy Gumbley, who returns to motorsport after an 11 year break.

Nordstrom finished 4th  in the Cupra R Class last year, after three wins and finishing half his races on the podium. The 19-year old former Mini S Class Champion has a brand new PlumberTraining.com backed Leon Cupra for 2008, and will no-doubt be chasing race wins and podiums again.

Others to look out for include former kart champion and Radical racer Daniel Rowbottom, who achieved pole positions and race wins last year in cars that he had never driven before. Dan Stringfellow joins the Championship this year, having finished 4th  overall and 2nd  in class in his first season of saloon car racing in last year’s Kumho BMW Championship. James Appleby, the son of acclaimed international rally driver Dave Appleby, also joins the series.  James only passed his ARDS test in February and has been impressive in testing his Hardinge Machine Tools backed Leon Cupra.  David Nye, who finished 5th  in the Ford Fiesta Championship last year, will also be worth watching, as he’s already set fast times in pre-season testing and is being run by the vastly experienced Daniels Motorsport team.

Martin Byford: “Pre-season testing has gone very well; at some circuits we’ve been as quick as we’d expected to be and at others we’ve exceeded our expectations. We’ve done our homework, now it’s time to hand it in and see if we can get an A grade! Testing is one thing, but we don’t know what the others have been doing and there are some experienced Cupra racers on the grid and some fast guys I’ve raced against before in Clios, so we’re not underestimating the opposition. We’ve just prepared our Leon Cupra the best we can and we’re going to Brands Hatch to drive the wheels off it.”

Carl Breeze: “We’ve had two good pre-season tests, one at Brands Hatch and the other at Rockingham, where we concentrated on race set-up and how to get the best out of the tyres - and everything has gone very well.  I’ve gelled well with my new team and Daniel [Welch] and I work well together; it’s good to have a quick team-mate in terms of data sharing and we speak the same language as regards what we want out of the car. It’s important for me to start the season well, and qualifying at Brands Hatch will be very important as overtaking opportunities are few and far between.  Last year we won the first race and started the second from pole, so I’ll be looking to do something similar at Brands Hatch this time, and then try and maintain that pace in thearly race meetings and be the one that other drivers have to chase.”

Daniel Rowbottom: “We’ve only done one pre-season test at Oulton Park, and whilst we only ran the car for twenty laps or so, what we learnt was very valuable. I felt comfortable in the Leon Cupra, and as Freddy Nordstrom was there testing the same day, we had another SEAT driver on track to compare ourselves against.  Brands Hatch will be a big learning curve for us, both because the car is new and I’ve only raced there before in sportscars, never in a saloon, but equally we are quietly confident that we’ll be able to do a good job and start the season well.”

The 2008 SEAT Cupra Championship gets underway on the Brands Hatch Indy Circuit on Friday 28th  March, 2008, with two 45 minute test sessions starting at 09.50 and 14.00. Qualifying takes place the following day, with two 20 minute sessions starting at 10.45 and 15.10.  These will determine the grid positions for the pair of 22 lap races on Sunday 30th  March, which begin at 10.40 and 17.10.