Ash Sutton: Snetterton ‘has been good’ after leaving as top scorer

Ash Sutton left Snetterton as the top scorer of the British Touring Car Championship weekend in Norfolk, despite failing to win any of the three races.

Sutton had qualified in sixth on Saturday, but an electrical issue saw him stop on track in the ‘Quick Six’ part of qualifying, unable to post a time.

At the start of Sunday’s opening race, Sutton went around the outside of Adam Morgan and NAPA Racing UK team-mate Daniel Rowbottom through Riches to quickly take third, where he remained for the rest of the race, despite a late-race challenge on Tom Ingram for second.

One of only three drivers to run the hard tyre in race three saw Sutton fall back, although he ended up as the best of those on the slower tyre, taking tenth.

Back on softs for race three, Sutton moved up five places on the opening lap, with some contact with the BMW of Charles Rainford at the Bombhole, before picking off the hard-tyre-shod Morgan and Daniel Lloyd at just over a third distance to move into third.

On lap seven, Sutton took second from One Motorsport’s Josh Cook, but he was unable to prevent Power Maxed Racing’s Mikey Doble claiming a maiden victory in the BTCC.

Reflecting on his weekend, Sutton says his choice to run the soft tyre in the opening race was in part dictated by the risk of rain showers, which failed to materialise, later in the day.

“It’s been good,” Sutton told TouringCars.Net. “We weren’t sure what to do in race one, tyre-choice wise, but the weather forced our hand a little bit, which was interesting.

“I’m glad we made progress and put the soft tyre on. Sixth to third was all done before we got to Turn 1, really. We settled in for the race and had a little stab at Tom on the last lap, but I had to back out and give it back to him as it was a little bit over the mark. But I was pleased with the progress there.

“Race two was a normal hard tyre [race] – how can you survive? The opening lap was strong and put us in a good place.

“That allowed us to have a few clean laps at the start and then we could ‘chip away’ at letting people by rather than being swallowed up and spat out – we were in a bit more controlled air.

“Race three was about getting back and getting some points under our belt. I would have liked the race win, of course, but we had a bit of contact on the opening lap from Rainford which bent some of the rear toe links on the right side.

“It meant the balance wasn’t quite where I wanted it to be, and it felt like I was hurting the front tyre quite a bit. I didn’t quite maximise what we could have. But credit to Mikey Doble and Power Maxed on his first win.”

In the face of some criticism about the hard tyre regulations, whereby the top three from race one must run the hardest-available compound in race two, the four-time champion was nonchalant about how it can affect the results.

“It’s really tricky because the limiting factor is when the majority of people are going to be on the hard tyre. In race one, a fair number of drivers were on the hard tyre.

“Realistically, you want to be on the hard tyre when the majority of the grid is because you won’t drop as far back, but you can’t control that. Sometimes it falls your way and sometimes it doesn’t.

“It is a big kick in the nuts when you have to put the hard tyre on after having a solid result, but you’ve got to try and roll the dice differently through the day to make it work in your favour.”