Ash Sutton: ‘I like the format, but it just didn’t come my way today’

Ash Sutton remained in positive spirits after Saturday at Donington Park, despite the NAPA Racing UK driver crashing out of the first-ever British Touring Car Championship qualifying race.

Sutton had earlier in the afternoon shown strong pace in his Ford Focus, qualifying in second for the ‘race to pole’ a mere 0.008 seconds adrift of rival Tom Ingram.

In the qualifying race, Sutton immediately went on the attack, trading paint several times with Ingram over the opening lap before the contact which ended his race starting the second lap.

As Sutton went for a late move on Ingram, the Hyundai driver closed the door and as Sutton’s car touched the grass he was sent into a slide across the circuit, narrowly missing team-mate Dan Cammish, before ending his race beached in the gravel.

That result means Sutton will start from 21^st and last on the grid for Sunday’s opening race.

“I’ll be honest, I like the theory of it and whatnot, but today’s result was just a pile of shit,” said Sutton to TouringCars.Net. “It didn’t go to plan at all.

“On the first lap I felt good with the car. It felt like we hit Tom a couple of times, had the door shut multiple times and found the grass twice.

“There was one proper [contact] up at McLean’s, but again, just the door being shut. But the rest of it was all sort of amicable.

“Then coming down into turn one on lap two did not go to plan at all. It was a late move from Tom to a gap that was essentially to cut over a car length. I went to fill it, and I had a bit of an overspeed to them too.

“He closed it, put me on the grass, and unfortunately, I was a bit of a passenger at that point. So it was a real shame, especially because I unfortunately took Cammish with me, who was obviously a completely innocent party in that.

“It was not ideal in that respect. But I like the format and I like the idea of it. It’s exciting, it’s good for the fans, but just it didn’t come my way today.”

The four-time champion is still hoping to be in the mix for at least one victory on Sunday.

“I’m happy with our pace in the car, so it was almost a missed opportunity in terms of going for pole.

“To come through tomorrow is the aim in race one, try and put ourselves back in the mix, have a bit of a hunt and see if we can claw a podium or potentially a win out of it.

“It’s going to make it more difficult that everyone has the same level of boost, but then you’ve got to go on raw pace. I’d like to think we’re still strong in that position.

“And then obviously for race two, the boost will then come into an effect. We’ll wait and see how that one plans out.”

Despite being the early loser from the new qualifying race format, Sutton is expecting the format to deliver further tense battles as the season progresses, especially when differing levels of TOCA Turbo Boost [TBL] come into play from the second event of the year onwards.

“I think [the feistiness of the qualifying race] is only going to get worse –at the minute we’re all on a similar level of boost. When we start bringing in that deficit, Brands, Thruxton, Snetterton, all of these places, it’s only going to get feistier. And that’s I think what they wanted.

“That’s what we wanted; from a championship perspective, it spices it up, it adds another element into it. I’ve been on the receiving end and highlighted that.

“It’s fine, I’m in good spirit, we just need to bounce back now.”