Briton Tom Boardman has become the second driver to secure a one of drive in the World Touring Car Championship following his success in the latest rounds of the SEAT Leon Eurocup at Pau.
Former BTCC racer Boardman secured a win and fourth place on the challenging French street circuit and will now take up a drive with the SUNRED Engineering team in a SEAT Leon TFSi for the two races at Estoril next month, where he will partner former Independents' champion Tom Coronel.
Having taken pole position in a wet qualifying session, Boardman led from start-to-finish in the dry opening race, although he was helped when second placed Eoin Murray went off into the barriers and was forced to retire. It left Boardman with a winning margin of nearly five seconds over Marin Colak, who held off the challenge of Diego Puyol for second place.
With the top eight reversed for the second race, Boardman managed to come home just off the podium in fourth place after a long battle with Andrea Larini edging him out of third place.
Hungarian driver Gabor Weber took victory in the race but the combined results from the weekend mean Boardman will now look forward to making his debut in the WTCC on Portguese in July.
“I was so looking forward to going back and racing at Pau; it's such a fantastic circuit and it makes me realise why I love racing so much,” Boardman enthused. “Overtaking is difficult, so my first aim was to qualify on pole. I was hoping it would be wet in qualifying because I was confident we'd be quicker than everyone else. It was very wet, the car was working perfectly and I pulled everything out to get that pole position - which we did.
![Tom Boardman - Triple R SEAT Leon Eurocup [Pic credit: SEAT Sport]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/449963.jpg)
