SEAT drops ORECA for 2010

The team ran Yvan Muller to the WTCC title in 2008 and is running Muller and former grand prix driver Tiago Monteiro in two of the five works Leons this year.

But ORECA has been told that its relationship with SEAT will end at the conclusion of the current season in Macau next month.

ORECA boss Hugues de Chaunac told this week's AUTOSPORT magazine that he believes the Spanish manufacturer will scale back its WTCC project from next year.

"I can confirm that we are stopping with SEAT, it is 100 per cent," he said. "I expect them to go on with a much smaller programme in 2010."

SEAT Sport boss Jaime Puig denied that a decision to reduce its effort has been taken and insisted that ORECA was only dropped because he cannot commit to a 2010 programme until the equivalency between the turbo diesel Leon and its petrol rivals is announced.

"First we have to know what the rules are and then we will decide," Puig told AUTOSPORT.