SUTTON UNSTOPPABLE

Qualifying for the opening round of the season is the single most significant session of the British Touring Car Championship year. Why? Because it’s the first of only two competitive outings in which no one is carrying any success ballast. The second is the opening race, but here random incidents can skew the formbook.

Back in May at Thruxton, the field faced a damp track and it was a case of getting the slicks on at the right time as the surface dried out, so perhaps the significance of such an occasion was diluted. That’s what 28 of the 29 drivers and their teams would have preferred to think. But really, the fact that it was Ash Sutton who emerged on top proved to be an accurate barometer to the season ahead.

And yes, there was a random incident in the first race, Sutton’s Infiniti Q50 turned around by a pinched-in Colin Turkington as he headed through the Complex on the opening lap. But the form on that weekend set the tone for the year. Not only did Sutton recover from that to storm through to finish 10th (ninth once Turkington had been penalised behind him), but he then went on another mission in race two, after being