Tarquini and SEAT Crowned at FIA Gala Awards

As another exciting FIA World Touring Car Championship season comes to close, Gabrielle Tarquini is crowned champion by the FIA. Claiming the title at the last event of the season through a second and fifth place finish at Macau, team mate Yvan Muller had to settle for second by a 4 point margin. BMW’s Augusto Farfus finished in third spot with a series breaking record of winning six races.

Gabriele Tarquini said:

“After losing the 2008 title to Yvan at the last race, my target this year was to win. Especially because I felt that this could have been my last opportunity to become world champion. I am not young anymore and I am not sure I will find myself again in the position to fight for a world title”.

“In Macau I started with two crashes. The second one sent me to the hospital during qualifying and when my engineer sent me a text saying ‘recover, because we will repair the car’ I thought he was lying just to make me feel better. But they did and actually rebuilt it better than it was before the crash. A big slice of this title belongs to the team.”

This championship win makes the 47 year old Tarquini the oldest FIA World Champion to date. His win also gave his team SEAT their second manufacturers championship with BMW three points behind.

SEAT Sport Director Jaime Puig, who collected the manufacturers’ trophy, said:

“Winning two championships for the second year was the reward for a fantastic season and I want to thank the whole team for their effort, their great capacity for work and their solidarity. The 2009 season has shown again that SEAT Sport is a team in which everybody works for everybody. ”

Photo courtesy of FIA