Ash Sutton: ‘We need a bit of lady luck’

Ash Sutton admitted that he ‘needs a bit of lady luck’ after qualifying in 12^th for the opening British Touring Car Championship race at Silverstone.

The NAPA Racing UK driver benefitted from a change in the conditions in Q1, having completed just one true flying lap to put him fourth, before the rain intensified and lap times didn’t’ improve.

However, the four-time champion failed to make any progress in Q2, remaining rooted to the bottom of the timesheets in 12^th. It wasn’t for a lack of trying – as Sutton suffered a spin at Copse with four minutes to go.

That leaves Sutton starting race one on Sunday from 12^th on the grid, with title rival Tom Ingram, who is 32 points ahead in the drivers’ standings, just two places behind on the grid.

After qualifying, a matter-of-fact Sutton admitted that he didn’t believe he could have qualified any better, blaming his lack of TOCA Turbo Boost, with Sutton having just three seconds of boost per lap by dint of his championship position.

“Even if we could have matched the time we did in FP2 it would only have been by 0.4 seconds, so we were never going any better than P12 if I’m honest, unless the weather changed,” said Sutton. “The rain just came a bit too late – we were banking on some wet conditions.

“It’s the nature of no deployment and a boxy car. We knew coming here this weekend it would not be great for us, and that’s kind of proven it.

“We had to try and maximise everything we’ve got. We did that today, maybe not on ultimately lap time, but if we did we wouldn’t have changed position.

“We’ll go into tomorrow to try and maximise points in terms of positions and moving up the field. We need a bit of lady luck – 32 points is not a little gap to bring down.

“I’ve been on the other side of it, where I’ve been 32 points ahead, so I know how uncontrollable it is. You can sacrifice a little bit here and there; you don’t need to be as risky. It’s going to be a tough day, but we’ve just got to maximise it.

“If the opportunity comes, I’m not going to leave it on the table and not take it. I will maximise everything I can – I’ll make it the widest Ford if I need to, I’ll try and make it the fastest Ford.

“Racing is very different – trying to overcome the deployment button around here is nigh on impossible. Especially in race one, both me and Tom are going to find it harder than the guys around us. Eight tenths to try and overcome in a straight line – you can’t do much about that.”