SEAT pushes diesel plan

While no decision has yet been made, SEAT Sport's Jaime Puig told AUTOSPORT: "SEAT UK would like to run diesels, but we have to see whether they can be competitive. We need to put an engine in a car before we can be sure and that will take time. At the moment it is only a desire on SEAT UK's part."

BTCC bosses have already accepted, in principle, that diesels could race in the championship, but have not yet published any details of technical rules. Equivalency rules between cars built, like the SEATs, to ETCC regs and those built to BTCC spec have also yet to be firmed up.

It's still not clear either who will run the BTCC Toledos, to be driven by Jason Plato and Rob Huff. The teams in contention, according to AUTOSPORT, are Ray Mallock Limited, which won the 1999 BTCC with Nissan, Northern South, which runs SEAT's UK one-make Leon series, and VW Audi Group stalwart Richard Lloyd's Apex Motorsport.