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SEAT Quits FIA WTCC

Spanish car manufacturer SEAT yesterday evening announced their official quit from the FIA World Touring Car Championship. Although it was initially believed that SEAT Sport will only reduce their WTCC programme to fewer cars for the 2010 season, it now seems the series will no longer benefit from factory SEAT Leons in the sport.

However, the company will continue to supply customer teams with petrol or diesel powered Leons for the upcoming season.

After achieving all possible successes in the WTCC, we are now going to focus all our efforts on customer sports in different championships. We are always eager to win when a SEAT is on the track and to do so, SEAT Sport will provide all of our customers with the necessary technical support,” said SEAT Sport director Jaime Puig in a statement.

Indeed, SEAT won everything it could have won in the WTCC series, grabbing 4 titles in the last 2 years. Apart from 2 manufacturers' titles in back-to-back years (2008 and 2009), SEAT has produced 2 world champions also, namely Yvan Muller and Gabriele Tarquini.

The first quit rumors issued by SEAT happened during the course of last season, when the Spanish manufacturer admitted its unhappiness over the limitation of their turbo boost pressure (following BMW's pressure over the championship officials).

BMW also announced a reduction in their FIA WTCC programme for the upcoming season, limiting their effort to only 2 cars (Andy Priaulx and Augusto Farfus Jr). Chevrolet, on the other hand, are expected to maintain their 3-car effort in the series next year, while Lada is yet to announce its plans for the future.
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