Changes made between the first and second British Touring Car Championship races at Snetterton ‘brought the car alive’ for Ash Sutton, as the Subaru star took the championship lead after race two.
Having won race one, Sutton started the second race of the day from pole position and was unchallenged on his way to a fourth win of the season.
The result means that Sutton is one of only two drivers to have won races with the maximum 75 kg of success ballast on board, the other being Honda’s Gordon Shedden in race three at Oulton Park.
“It couldn’t be much better than that to be honest with you, it’s really, really good,” said Sutton to TouringCars.Net after the race. “I wasn’t expecting the race one result to be completely honest, but in race two everyone was suddenly on the same tyre as us so it made my life a bit easier.
“In the last three laps we reigned it in, as I was just worried about keeping it on the black stuff. But up to that point it was quite controlled.
“We made some changes between race one and two that transformed the car and brought it alive; it was the best car of the season.”
Sutton believes that it was changes made to his set-up between the two races that helped him to the win, despite carrying the maximum amount of weight on board. Despite proving he can win with the weight, Sutton was cautious about predicting a hat-trick in race three.
“It genuinely didn’t feel like we had full ballast – with the changes we made it just brought the car alive.
“It will be a tall order [to win in race three] with 75 kg from P8. Yes, we’ve got the soft tyre, but we all know how hard it is to get through the field here.
“It’s not going to be easy, especially with the Hondas around. I’s going to be very, very hard.”