New Seat to Debut in August

Last week, the car completed it first full test in the hands of Jordi Gene and Rickard Rydell at Almeria, Spain while the team's current Toledo Cupras were being shipped to Puebla, Mexico for this weekend's race.

It had been thought that the car would only make it for the final rounds in Valencia and Macau, however Seat have been impressed with the new car's performance in testing and have brought its debut forward to rounds 13 and 14 at Oschersleben.

Jaime Puig Seat Sport director said: "There is still a great deal of work to be done, but we look forward for the Leon WTCC's debut at Orchesleben in late August.

"We are very optimistic over it's reliability. During the three days at the Almeria racetrack, the car run for over 700 kilometres without any technical failure, which is really outstanding.

"Mainly due to the shape of the bodywork ­there is still a lot of work to be done on the aerodynamics field. But our simulations at this stage of development point to the car being better at circuits with long corners and short straight lines."