Doble fends off Sutton for maiden win in finale

Mikey Doble clung on in the face of an attack from Ash Sutton to claim his maiden British Touring Car Championship race win in the finale at Snetterton.

With Doble starting on reversed-grid pole, and his Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra the only car in the top six on soft tyres, this looked like a golden opportunity for the Surrey man to break his duck.

But a lengthy safety car period, caused when Stephen Jelley’s Honda made heavy contact with the barriers at Oggies after contact from Tom Ingram, threw Doble’s tyre advantage into jeopardy.

By the time the safety car was called, Josh Cook had already worked his soft-shod One Motorsport Honda Civic Type R into fourth place after some hectic first-lap battling with Sutton and Charles Rainford. And only the Hyundai i30 N Fastbacks of Dan Lloyd (Restart Racing) and Adam Morgan (Excelr8 Motorsport), both on hard tyres, separated this trio from Doble.

At the restart, Cook got down the inside of Morgan at the hairpin, but Lloyd proved a tougher nut to crack. Although the Honda got through at Agostini, it ran wide and Lloyd was back ahead, only for Cook to finally make second position his at the esses.

Sutton quickly got past Lloyd too, but took another couple of laps to deal with Cook.

By the time the championship leader had worked his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST into second place, Doble was 1.680 seconds to the good, but Sutton had one more lap of TOCA Turbo Boost in hand.

Doble went without TTB four laps from home, and Sutton used his boost advantage to move right onto the Vauxhall’s rear bumper, with both now on equal amounts of remaining TTB.

From then on Doble never cracked, consistently defending the inside of the hairpin until Sutton, his front tyres shot, locked up and ran wide there on the penultimate lap. That gave Doble the break he needed and he won by 0.770s.

“My plan worked, didn’t it?” said Doble after netting PMR’s first win since Jason Plato claimed the season finale in 2019. “Hard tyres in race one… I’m lost for words really.

“My last potential win [at Oulton Park last year] got taken away by a deserved champion in Jake Hill, and I thought, ‘Who else can then try and take my second one away than Ash Sutton?’

“It was a fantastic race. Everyone deserves it so much. It’s massive for our family to be here in the BTCC, let alone be here as a race winner. And to bring PMR their first win since JP in 2019… It’s been a long road to get here.”

Cook fell away in third while, a long way behind, Ingram stormed through from the back of the grid in his Excelr8 Hyundai to take fourth from the much-improved Sam Osborne’s Alliance Ford on the penultimate lap, despite splitter damage following the Jelley contact making life uncomfortable under braking.

Dan Cammish was another on a recovery after sinking down the field in race two on hard tyres, and he came out on top of a hectic scrap for sixth.

This fight continued, albeit now for seventh place, into the final stages. Hill’s bid to move his West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport past the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport of Ronan Pearson into the very last corner of the race led to contact, and Hill’s team-mate Rainford took advantage to jump ahead and grab seventh from Hill and Pearson. Another WSR BMW, in the hands of Aiden Moffat, completed the top 10.

Chris Smiley could not take up his front-row grid position due to an electrical problem on his Restart Hyundai, and joined the race three laps down.

BTCC Snetterton – Race 3 results