SEAT Sport has announced that it is to change the top prize on offer in the SEAT Cupra Championship to give the title winner a one-off race drive in a Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship-spec Leon.
The current prize sees the title winner secure £100,000 - which
Mat Jackson used to break into the BTCC this season – while the top three drivers get the chance to test SEAT's BTCC challenger, with newly crowned champion Jonathan Adam, Fulvio Mussi and Carl Breeze all getting the chance to run in the Leon at Rockingham yesterday [Tuesday] along with Cupra R class champion Harry Vaulkhard.
However, in changes made for next season, the prize fund of £250,000 will be more evenly distributed throughout the field with the winner instead getting the chance to race a full-blown touring car while also securing their own Leon FR road-car to use away from the track.
"We have made some small changes to the championship and are always looking at ways of attracting more drivers, making it more appealing and maybe even reducing costs so more people can join the party," championship co-ordinator Mark Turner told
Crash.net. "We have adjusted the prize fund, although we have kept the £250,000 prize fund that the Cupra Championship has enjoyed in recent years. However we have spread it round a bit more with an aim of allowing more people to get prize money to put into a budget, rather than having it all in one pot for the winner to take.
"The overall prize for the champion has changed and we are offering a drive in a British Touring Car, which is a hell of an incentive to be honest. It's something that most of the guys at the front really want, they want to drive for a manufacturer in touring cars and we are giving them the launch-pad to showcase what they have on the leading stage.
"It's a one-off drive rather than the full season, but proving you have it over a race weekend is different to testing and if someone does well in that one off drive, then the sky is the limit for them."
![Cupra Championship drivers Harry Vaulkhard, Jonathan Adam, Carl Breeze and Fulvio Mussi with the BTCC SEAT Leon [Pic credit: SEAT Sport UK]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/393623.jpg)
