IN ASSOCIATION WITH
That yellow-and-blue Ford Focus ST was four-wheel-drifting around the fast sweeps of Thruxton, absolutely on the limit. And we’re talking about a front-wheel-drive car… Ash Sutton, three-time British Touring Car Championship winner, was once again giving an exhibition, a masterclass, on his way to two more victories and surely, if the season continues in this vein, his fourth title.
The second of those wins at the Hampshire speedbowl was the sucker punch. For the first time in BTCC history, someone had recorded two successes on three consecutive race weekends. Sutton alighted from the Ford and couldn’t hold back the emotion. “Making history, it’s big,” he spluttered. “I just can’t thank the team enough. The car is phenomenal and it’s just a joy to drive.”
In the wake of Sutton’s tour de force last time out at Snetterton, his race engineer Antonio Carrozza had predicted that the development carried out on the Focus by the Motorbase Performance squad during the winter would make it an absolute weapon at Thruxton.
He was right. The car had consistent grip at the front end – no mean feat on a high-speed circuit that dishes out punishment to the frontleft – and Sutton is a past master from his rear-wheel-drive exploits at controlling the rear. And just look at those stats from race two: it wasn’t so much the margin of victory, a ‘mere’ 2.234 seconds over the Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N of Tom Ingram, but his fastest lap, set on the second tour, was 1.029s clear of anyone else’s…
As he reflected
