New Volvo and SEAT engines delayed

Date published : 14 May 2011 - 07:18:04

World Touring Car Championship SEAT team SUNRED and Volvo squad Polestar Racing have both opted to delay introducing their new 1.6 litre turbos after testing the units last week.The teams had been hoping to have the new-generation units, which are claimed to provide as much as 40 extra horsepower, ready to deploy for this weekend's round at Monza. But after the latest bench tests of the SEAT engine and a track test of its Volvo counterpart, both teams have decided to remain with their current two-litre engines.SUNRED team principal Joan Orus said that he expected his team to debut the 1.6 at the next WTCC round in Hungary."The first results of the tests are very good in terms of both power and reliability, and our plan is to test it for the first time in the car next week," he said. "In the meantime we are working to accomplish all the homologation formalities. Should everything be properly done, we hope to start using the engine from Hungary."Polestar ran its engine at Mantorp in Sweden last week, but team principal Christian Dahl said that more work needed to be done before it could be raced."We expect the new engine to mark a significant step forward in terms of performance and therefore we believe it needs some further test sessions before being used in race conditions," he said. "A reasonable goal is to make the switch in June."