Ashley Sutton dedicates record-equalling fourth Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship title to his fiancé and baby boy

Ashley Sutton dedicated his record-equalling fourth Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship title to his fiancé and baby boy.

The Bishop’s Stortford driver was victorious in the final weekend’s opening race at Brands Hatch to secure the crown and draw level with Andy Rouse and Colin Turkington on the all-time winners’ list.

He has also become the first driver to lift the biggest prize in UK motorsport in both front-wheel-drive and rear-wheel-drive machinery.

And the former Birchwood High School student said becoming a dad for the first time just before the season started gave him fresh impetus.

“It feels pretty surreal to be standing here as a four-time champion,” said Sutton, 29. “At the moment the magnitude of what we’ve achieved hasn’t fully sunk in, but I’m sure over the next week or so I’ll start to take stock of what this all means. It’s just phenomenal!

“For me personally, one of the biggest things I wanted to do was to become the first person to win the title in both front-wheel-drive and rear-wheel-drive cars. To have done that is really something.

“This year is going to be hard to beat. My little boy Sonny arrived just before the season started and it’s been the best thing that has ever happened to me. Becoming a dad changed my approach and I’ve just been focused on making both him and my fiancé Ellie as proud as possible.”

Sutton, who also won the title in 2017, 2020 and 2021, was 45 points clear at the top of the leaderboard going into the last race day.

A lights-to-flag success in the opening race in his Ford Focus ST meant he could not be caught at the summit, but he still went on to win the second race before also bagging points with a 13th-place finish in the reverse-grid finale.

Sutton’s efforts also helped NAPA Racing UK/Ford a second successive teams’ championship and a maiden manufacturers’ title.

He totalled six pole positions, 12 wins and a further eight podium finishes over the course of the 10-round campaign.

Along the way he smashed a number of records, including scoring the most wins, podiums, pole positions, fastest laps and laps led in a single season in the modern era. He also became the first driver since Alain Menu in 1997 to win four consecutive races in a season.

He was also awarded the Goodyear Wingfoot Award for having the best qualifying record over the course of the year.

“To have claimed the records that we have this season is a real testament to everyone at NAPA Racing UK and Alliance Racing,” said Sutton, who is the competition's youngest four-time champion.

“So much development has gone into the Ford Focus for this year. We opened every drawer and lifted out every tool to improve the whole package.

“It goes without saying that my engineer Tony [Carrozza] has been instrumental in all of this too. He’s really helped me to dial into the car and without him by my side this would have been hard to do as he is something special.

“I’ve made no secret that I want to go down in the history books as the one of the best-ever touring car drivers so the aim is clear moving forward - to come back and try to win more races and titles.

“We’ll enjoy this and then it’ll be about resetting and coming back in 2024!”