Sutton makes it two out of two

Ash Sutton made it two wins out of two in the British Touring Car Championship at Donington Park, after another close battle with Tom Ingram.

Sutton had to use all his racecraft in the early stages to keep his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST ahead of the Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback of Ingram.

Both of them, as mandated by the sporting regulations, were running the medium compound of Goodyear tyres as the top three finishers in race one, and had a host of drivers closing them down in the early laps.

Initially this was the West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport of Jake Hill, on soft rubber. On the fourth lap, Hill drew abreast of Ingram on the Craner Curves, but had to back out of the move and it was the soft-shod One Motorsport Honda Civic Type R of Josh Cook that dived down the inside to demote Hill at the Old Hairpin.

Right behind this quartet were Dan Rowbottom’s Alliance Ford, Tom Chilton’s Excelr8 Hyundai, and the Alliance Ford of Dan Cammish, all on medium tyres.

After a few laps the short-term benefits of the soft tyres began to reverse, and Sutton and Ingram were able to inch away once again. Then, on the 12th lap of 18, Cook’s left-front tyre punctured and he was forced off the road at McLeans and into the pits for a replacement.

Simultaneously, Hill’s WSR BMW team-mate Charles Rainford – also on softs – was off at the Old Hairpin as a result of a punctured left-rear, and nerves began to jangle about those on the white-walled compound.

Dan Cammish, NAPA Racing UK

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

With just over one lap remaining, Cammish came through to pass Hill at Coppice for third place, while up ahead it was another win by Sutton, who extended his margin to Ingram to 1.052 seconds at the finish – and never had to use his single lap of TOCA Turbo Boost.

“That was really good,” said Sutton. “Being on the soft tyre in race one we thought that should be better, and then we all realised it wasn’t the tyre to be on.

“We changed the car for race two and it was a bit lively at the start, but I did what I had to do. I worked out a way for Tom to waste his turbo boost lap, and then that was it – I was away with the fairies.”

Hill held on for fourth, continuing a good day in the face of the WSR team’s pace deficit, while Rowbottom followed up his third place in race one with a fifth this time, ahead of Chilton.

Aiden Moffat, after a disastrous Saturday, has climbed nicely up the order all day and finished seventh with his WSR BMW, and Chris Smiley emerged in eighth place with the Independents class win in his Restart Racing Hyundai.

Smiley was the beneficiary of the misfortunes for Independent rivals Cook and Mikey Doble, whose Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra was given a drive-through penalty for personnel being on the grid too late before the green-flag lap.

The hard-driving Northern Irishman also completed a sensational move down the Craner Curves on both Daryl DeLeon (WSR BMW) and Dexter Patterson (Un-Limited Motorsport Cupra Leon) for the class win over Patterson.

While DeLeon faded to 12th, Adam Morgan carried his Excelr8 Hyundai through from the back of the grid to complete the top 10 behind Patterson.

With Sutton pulling out the number ‘6’ in the reversed-grid draw, Chilton starts on pole for the finale.

BTCC Donington Park – Race 2 results