Last weekend at Silverstone saw three TOCA NGTC-turbo engines roll out onto the grid and for the first time a car other than a Vauxhall Vectra was used as Special Tuning UK entered an NGTC SEAT Leon with Phil Glew at the helm.

Prior to last weekend both Andrew Jordan and David Pinkney had been using the NGTC-turbo engine in their respective Vauxhall Vectra’s but all eyes were on the SEAT Leon of Phil Glew to see how the engine worked in a different chassis.

Raphaël Caillé, the managing director of Swindon Engines who supply TOCA with the NGTC engine, spoke about the SEAT Leon, “The performance was excellent for a car that was shaken down on an airfield the day before the race. Not only did the car finished all 3 races but in the 3rd race, its best lap time was only 0.5 sec off the best lap. All credit to the Special Tuning Team and Phil Glew. Well done to them!”

The NGTC engine has already seen it’s first victory courtesy of Andrew Jordan who won convincingly, taking a lights to flag victory in the final race of the day at Croft before the summer break. Raphael went on to say, “The proof that the TOCA engine offers BTCC teams, not only a cost effective power plant, but also one that can power a car to victory. Well done Andrew and Pirtek Racing!”

The NGTC engine will have now completed 45 races under the bonnet of both Jordan and Pinkney’s Vectra’s and more recently, Glew’s Leon. We asked Raphael Caille if there had been any changes that they have made to the engine throughout the season.

“We have done minor modifications to keep on top of reliability and performance consistency but 99% of the specification is as the first race of the season.”, said Raphael. “What we see though, and Andrew Jordan’s very impressive pace at Silverstone illustrates perfectly, is that as the teams progress they get the best out of the TOCA engine performance as the season goes on.”

James Mappin is the editor-in-chief covering the British Touring Car Championship. You can contact him at james@btcccrazy.co.uk, on twitter @BTCCCrazy or on his personal twitter account @jamesmappin.