Race Incident

The 2008 Spanish SEAT Leon Supercopa champion Tom Boardman has signed for the 2009 World Touring Car Championship with the Spanish team SUNRED Engineering Development. He will run a petrol-fuelled SEAT Leon and will have the experienced Tom Coronel as team mate.

Boardman ran two WTCC races for SUNRED at Estoril, a prize for winning the European Supercopa race at Pau. The 25 year old British driver made his racing debut in the T Cars championship in 1999 and became champion after winning seven of eight races. He then joined the British Touring Car Championship’s Production class in 2001 where he raced three seasons until moving to the British SEAT Cupra championship in 2004. After winning that championship in 2005 he moved to the Spanish championship in 2006.

In the press release Tom comments on his coming WTCC season:

“It all feels like a bit of a dream at the moment – I feel like the luckiest man alive. Racing in the WTCC has been my aim for some time now, and I feel my time has come to show everyone what I’m capable of.”

“Tom Coronel did really well in the SUNRED Leon last year, and even won the second WTCC race in Japan outright. I think together we’ll make a very strong team and be able to challenge for the Independents’ titles in both the teams’ and drivers’ categories.”

“I’ve raced at half of the circuits already and it will be fun to go to new places like Brazil, Mexico, Morocco, Japan and Macau.  I can learn a new circuit very quickly.  As soon as I arrive somewhere new I go for a jog around the track and that helps me learn the layout, so racing for the first time at these new tracks won’t be such a disadvantage.”