The SEAT Cupra Challenge is an auto racing championship founded by the Spanish car company SEAT. It was first staged in 2003. featuring a field of identical Cupra cars supplied directly from the factory. Originally the championship's unique selling point to aspiring drivers was that the winner was guaranteed a drive with SEAT in their BTCC team the next season (although an ETCC drive was the original plan). Rob Huff and James Pickford won this prize in 2003 and 2004.

For 2005 the championship was restructured and opened up to teams, in the attempt of gaining a bigger grid - some of the less successful drivers in the original format had alleged that the cars were not all equal. The prize changed to the supply of a car for the winning team. The season consisted of 9 events, each with 2 races. Tom Boardman won the title from Mat Jackson and Tom Ferrier, with the top 5 made up of drivers with BTCC experience. Jackson is the early pace-setter in 2006, with Jackson, Ferrier, Carl Breeze and Johnathan Adam among the other frontrunners. They use unique racing seat leons which have a 300bhp 2.0 engines. The original seat leon cubra's had a 1.8 litre turbo with 250bhp.

References

2005 championship 2006 entry details