Gabriele Tarquini is to join Yvan Muller and Jordi Gene in switching to diesel power for his home round of the World Touring Car Chmpionship this weekend at Monza.
The Italian had his first run in the SEAT Leon TDi at Catalunya prior to the trip to
Brands Hatch and will run in the car again at Calafat before making the trip to Monza for the final race of the European season.
Having scored points in both races in Italy last season, Tarquini will now hope to make the most of the diesel engine to fight for honours this time around although he admitted that he would be driving to help both SEAT and Muller in the fight for the title – with his own hopes being somewhat slim after the Brands Hatch weekend.
“Monza is my home race and I am very happy to be going there with the Leon TDI, because for sure it will be better for us down the straights,” he said. “I will have a lot of family and friends at Monza and I am very focused on this race. I am thirty points behind in the drivers' standings with only forty points available it is too far, but there is still a very big job to do – and that is the try and help SEAT win the manufacturers' and Yvan win the drivers' championship.”
SEAT Sport race engineer Xavier Serra admitted that the Leon is probably the weakest car aerodynamically to cope with the long Monza straights but said he felt the diesel engine would prove to be advantageous heading into the weekend.
“Despite the Leon having the best chassis and best braking performance of the WTCC field, we have one of the weakest aero and engine packages – which theoretically should penalise us a lot at Monza, because the circuit is all about aero and engine performance,” he said. “It has a couple of very low speed chicanes with very high kerbs. The cars arrive at these chicanes in sixth gear and have to downshift to first and brake very hard, which is very demanding on the brakes. On top of this there is the large Parabolica corner which leads onto the main straight.
“Monza was the first race of the 2006 season, and surprisingly we were the best manufacturer and Yvan came away leading the drivers' standings. Despite lacking some top speed, we were able to exit the Parabolica really well and out-brake our rivals into the first chicane, where at the same time we were really good on the kerbs. We have very high expectations for Monza; the diesel engine has allowed us to solve our lack of top speed, although this has introduced a new issue because of the weight which should now penalised in the braking department. With the combination of petrol and diesel cars at Monza, we hope to cover all of pros and cons of each car and score good manufacturer points.”
