Ashley Sutton creates history at Donington Park to move nearer to Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship title

Ashley Sutton created more history at Donington Park as he moved closer to claiming a fourth Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship title.

The Bishop’s Stortford driver took the honours in Sunday’s opening contest as he earned his ninth victory of the season and set a new record for the most wins in a single campaign since the next generation touring car (NGTC) era began 12 years ago.

The former Birchwood High School student then claimed second- and fifth-place finishes as he extended his lead at the summit by five points to 42.

Sutton, who competes for NAPA Racing UK, produced yet another superlative performance in qualifying as he secured his fifth pole position of the year.

He stamped his authority on the 2.487-mile circuit in his Ford Focus to finish ahead of title rival Tom Ingram by little over a tenth of a second in 1min 33.154sec.

Sutton was made to work for his opening-race success in wet conditions after being shuffled down to third on the opening lap.

Making his way past the Toyota of Ricky Collard at the end of the first tour, he then dived down the inside of Ingram at the Melbourne hairpin a lap later to take the lead and from there he cruised to a comfortable victory.

Sutton, 29, banked more valuable points in race two as he clinched his 16th podium finish of the season.

Holding the lead off the line, he dropped behind Ingram early on and then nursed a long brake pedal for the remainder of the contest.

Despite coming under immense pressure from the BMW of Jake Hill, Sutton produced a masterful defence to maintain second place all the way to the chequered flag.

The front-wheel-drive ace then bided his time in the reverse-grid finale as he moved up from 11th to finish fifth.

Sutton will now prepare for the penultimate event of the campaign at Silverstone on the weekend of September 23-24.

“What we’re doing at the moment is making history and it’s pretty surreal,” said Sutton. “I’m trying to just soak it all in and live in the moment as much as I can with the team and my family.

“We’re at the business end of the season now. I’ve been here before and so I know what needs to be done.

“We’ve got a couple of weeks off until Silverstone so we’ll get our heads down, I’ll put in the hours on the sim and together we’ll make sure we come out all guns blazing.”