Diesel SEATs not for sale

SEAT's UK Motorsport Manager Scott Dennis told Autosport last month that the cars driven by Jason Plato and Darren Turner in this year's British Touring Car Championship, would be "sold to the highest bidder," during the winter.

But the Spanish manufacturer has now clarified that while the cars will indeed be sold, the diesel engines will not be included in any deal and petrol units will be fitted to the pair of Leons instead.

"Following reports suggesting that the Leon TDI will be available for customer teams to race in the 2009 HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship, SEAT Sport UK wishes to clarify that the team's two chassis (as driven by Jason Plato and Darren Turner in 2008) will be put up for sale," read a SEAT statement.

"The TDi engines, which won ten races in 2008, have been returned to SEAT Sport in Spain and will not be available for customer use in 2009.

"SEAT Sport continues to develop the highly competitive race-winning petrol engine for customer and importer use and SEAT Sport UK running a diesel engine (the only team to do so outside SEAT Sport's WTCC campaign) was a non-transferable agreement between SEAT UK (who own the chassis) and SEAT Sport (who own the engines)."

SEAT withdrew from UK Motorsport after this year's BTCC came to a close in September.