WTCC (2/12) : Puebla

The second round of the WTCC in Mexico has become a historic weekend for SEAT, after winning twice and clinching the top six positions in the second race. Jordi Gené won the first race with Rydell second, while Tiago Monteiro took the victory of the second race, followed by all of his SEAT mates : the five SEAT León TDI drivers and Tom Coronel with the SEAT León WTCC. SEAT and their drivers have also made a clean sweep of all the overall classifications.

Race 1

Gené started from the pole position he had set yesterday and from the very start had no problems to take the lead in front of the Chevrolets and Tom Coronel’s SEAT WTCC. With Gené dominating the race, the excitement was in the fight for the intermediate positions, since Rydell managed to move up to second after overtaking both Chevrolets and Coronel, to clinch a one-two finish for SEAT on the podium.

Further in the back, Tarquini, Muller and Monteiro were fighting with the Chevrolets of Menu and Huff and Farfus’ BMW, who was eventually overtaken by all his rivals. The SEAT Sport drivers managed to beat their rivals, with the help of an error made by Menu in the last laps

Race 2

Tiago Monteiro made an excellent start taking the lead from the first turn. Alain Menu (Chevrolet) spent half of the race withstanding the pressure of the SEAT drivers who overtook him one after the other : first Tarquini, then Rydell, and some time later, when the Chevrolet driver went slightly off the track, the rest of the SEAT drivers.

After the half-way mark, a little mistake made by Tarquini helped Rydell to move up to second, and from then on until the end of the race, the SEAT drivers drove carefully in order not to make any mistake that would jeopardise the historic result, with Monteiro’s first WTCC victory and all of his SEAT Sport team-mates behind him.

Pierre Yves Corthals took the victory of the Independents Trophy in both races, at the wheel of his SEAT León WTCC, rounding-off SEAT’s success.

Interview

Yvan Muller : (SEAT León TDI no. 12), 6th/4th : “All in all it’s been not bad considering that I didn’t start quite well into the weekend. The second race could have been better, but I made a mistake which was difficult to make-up for later. It could have gone better for me but the most important is that it’s been very good for SEAT.”

The photo gallery

Results :
Test
Free Practice 1
Free Practice 2
Qualifying
Warm Up
Race 1
Race 2