Ash Sutton enjoys ‘phenomenal day’ at Donington Park to lead standings

Ash Sutton enjoyed a ‘phenomenal’ opening weekend of the British Touring Car Championship at Donington Park, as the NAPA Racing UK star enjoyed an almost perfect race day on Sunday.

With two wins and a second place finish, along with bonus points for setting the fastest lap in two of the day’s three races, it marked Sutton’s second-best weekend in the BTCC of his career, only behind his performance on the Brands Hatch Indy circuit in 2023 when he grabbed one more point for scooping fastest lap in all three races.

It means Sutton comfortably leads the drivers’ championship standings by 18 points over Charles Rainford, as title rival Tom Ingram experienced strife in the opening two races of the season.

Having crashed out of Saturday’s qualifying race, Sutton had to start from the back for Sunday’s opener, but the 32-year-old charged through the field to third at the chequered flag, which subsequently became second when Ingram was excluded.

A lights-to-flag win in race two followed, despite having less TOCA Turbo Boost [TTB], and in race three Sutton managed to come through from eighth on the partially reversed grid to win, despite having the least TTB of any driver in the field.

“It’s been a phenomenal day,” said Sutton. “Turning it around like we have is obscene.

“Race one was obviously where we did all the work. In race two, we just had to chip away. We knew we had the car under us and there was more of a level playing field when it comes to the TTB.

“We knew we had the soft tyre for the last race; I didn’t really expect to go that far forward. I wanted to take a decent step, but when you’re going up against cars with that amount of TTB over you, it makes life a little bit more difficult.

“But we managed it and we stayed out of trouble. We picked up all the pieces from when the others were in their own battles and that’s how we did it. We didn’t need to use the boost to overtake, we did it with a bit of side draft and staying out of trouble.”

Sutton enjoyed battling with Ricky Collard in the final race of the weekend, taking the opportunity to seize the lead when presented to him by his rival’s error at Turn 1.

“Ricky made a little mistake. I semi sold him the dummy – I saw him going in a bit hot and that kind of landed in my lap on the exit.

“Fair play. He hung on in there and credits to Tom [Ingram] for coming through. That was always expected.”

Sutton is expecting more of a challenge for the next round at Brands Hatch, due to going into the event with the lowest TTB by dint of leading the championship standings.

“How we improve going up against all the cars in the race to pole will be the difficult bit – obviously going to Brands with one second of deployment in qualifying and then in the race to pole – that’s going to be the difficult part.

“But we’ll maximise everything we can from the car like we have today and see what we can do.”