Gabriele Tarquini says that SEAT may have to be more defensive as the World Touring Car Championship heads to Okayama this weekend for the penultimate round of the season.

Tarquini took victory in the opening race of the weekend at Imola last time out while team-mate Yvan Muller then took the honours in race two.

It means the pair currently hold first and second in the championship standings heading to Japan, while SEAT leads BMW by 21 points in the manufacturers' championship.

However, Tarquini insisted that Okayama is a circuit that isn't likely to favour the Leon TDi this weekend which could lead to SEAT adopting a different strategy to that employed in recent events – with his own being to just score as many points as possible.

“I think the SEAT drivers need to be more on the defensive than at Imola, where we went all-out to attack,” he said, “because the track is not so favourable for our cars. My personal target is to get as many points as possible for the team.”

Muller heads to Japan trailing the Italian by seven points as he looks to defend the title he secured last season but he said the focus for the moment remained on helping SEAT to secure the manufacturers' crown.

“Our overarching aim is to give SEAT the best possible options for carrying off the manufacturers' championship and then we'll start thinking about the drivers,” he said. “Okayama is difficult and completely unpredictable because of the constantly changing weather conditions, so making any kind of prediction as to the result is difficult.”