Ashley Sutton claims first Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship victory of the season at Thruxton
Ashley Sutton claimed his first Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship victory of the season at Thruxton on Sunday (June 9).
The Bishop’s Stortford driver claimed a commanding 40th career triumph in the reverse-grid finale - setting a new lap record in the process - having produced top-five finishes in the day’s first two races.
Sutton, 30, remains at the summit, but has seen his lead halved to five points ahead of the next rounds at Oulton Park on the weekend of June 22-23.
The former Birchwood High School student, who competes for NAPA Racing UK, arrived at the Hampshire venue with a limited amount of hybrid deployment to use, but maintained his record of reaching the Quick Six qualifying shootout at every event this year before ultimately securing fifth on the grid for Sunday’s opening contest.
In his Ford Focus ST, Sutton clinched his eighth podium finish in 10 races in what was a relatively tame opening encounter.
The four-time champion and reigning title holder had to nurse significant front-end damage for the majority of the second bout after inadvertent contact was made with the rear of Jake Hill’s BMW.
A lightning-fast start had seen him launch an attack on Hill, but that began to fade as the ever-worsening damage saw him drop into the clutches of the chasing pack and he managed to salvage fifth place at the chequered flag.
Sutton then ended the weekend with a superlative drive to claim his first success of the campaign by moving up from fourth in the third and final encounter.
The front-wheel-drive ace got past Dan Cammish, Josh Cook and Adam Morgan before pulling clear of the field to triumph by more than four seconds.
“It’s absolutely mega to end the weekend with a win and to finally get that monkey off my back, so to speak,” said Sutton.
“We’ve not had the fastest car this season, but this weekend the Focus has been hooked up and has been the best it has felt all year, which is a really good sign.
“To make progress with pretty much no hybrid in race one was a good start to the day and the aim was to build on that for race two. We had really strong pace, however contact with Jake at the Complex caused quite a bit of damage that we had to nurse home.
“Everyone at NAPA Racing UK pulled it out the bag to make sure we made the grid in race three. The car was a mess due to the damage and at one stage we had about 17 people working on it. It was touch and go, but we made it and boy was it dialled in.
“I made a bit of a mess at the start, but we recovered to bring it home - I wasn’t going to let that one go.
“Obviously we’re back to where we started with the points lead and that means heading to Oulton Park with little to no hybrid, which I’m not looking forward to at all.”
