Ash Sutton waltzed to victory in the second race of British Touring Car Championship Sunday at Oulton Park – by a staggering margin of almost 20 seconds.
But what may be more significant is that Tom Ingram managed to beat Dan Cammish to second place. Both finished on the podium despite being forced to use the hard-compound Goodyear tyres to the softs of most of their opposition.
Sutton, who has not yet used the softs so must therefore take them in the reversed-grid finale, started his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium from seventh on the grid. He was up to fifth at the start, and then passed Josh Cook for fourth by the end of the opening lap.
Aron Taylor-Smith was the highest-placed driver on soft tyres at this point. The Irishman was third in his Speedworks Motorsport-run Laser Tools Toyota Corolla GR Sport, trying to get past the Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback of Ingram for second.
Taylor-Smith’s bid to round Ingram at the hairpin on the second lap ended with the Toyota running wide, and now Sutton was up to third.
Next time around, Sutton got the run on Ingram out of Old Hall to move into second, then found the door left nicely open by Alliance Ford team-mate Cammish as they approached Lodge to take the lead.
Unsurprisingly, given his eight laps of TOCA Turbo Boost, Sutton simply scorched away. Cammish had just one lap of TTB, Ingram three, and each could have been vulnerable. But the Toyota of Taylor-Smith lacked pace, the Irishman forced into an extreme defensive drive to hold up the pack, and Cammish and Ingram focused on not fighting each other in order to maintain a gap to the warring pack behind.
With three laps remaining, Ingram made the move at Lodge to take second, while Sutton crossed the line 19.333 seconds in front – a margin that has rarely been seen in the BTCC since Frank Gardner’s Chevrolet Camaro was dominating the 1973 series.
Photo by: JEP
Rain arrived in the final couple of laps, but nothing could ruffle Sutton.
“We cleared two cars by the time we got to Turn 1,” he said. “Tom disposed of the other soft car for me when Aron got the elbow at Turn 3, and then it was a case of picking them off.
“There was a theory behind stretching the gap. For whatever reason, I might get a penalty like at Snetterton, and we thought the wet weather might come.
“But when you’re racing hard-tyred cars without boost when you’re on the softs with boost, it’s quite easy to stretch the gap out.”
Taylor-Smith’s defences were finally breached with four laps remaining by Daryl De Leon, but by this point his West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport was over 3s behind the duo in front, and the Anglo-Filipino could make no progress from fourth.
Soon after, Mikey Doble moved his Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon up to fifth, and Taylor-Smith’s Speedworks/Laser Tools Toyota team-mate Gordon Shedden got into sixth.
Taylor-Smith held on for seventh in front of the Excelr8 Hyundai of Ricky Collard, who passed Dexter Patterson on the penultimate lap with a fine move around the outside into Hislop’s. Patterson brought his PMR Audi home ninth, with Charles Rainford’s WSR BMW 10th.
Sam Osborne’s pass of Chris Smiley on the final lap was rewarded not only with 11th place, but also reversed-grid pole position for the finale after his position was drawn out by Sutton.
BTCC Oulton Park – Race 2 results
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– The Autosport.com Team
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