Ash Sutton continued his march to this year’s British Touring Car Championship with a stunning ninth victory of the campaign at Donington Park last weekend and now all signs point to the NAPA Racing Ford Focus man wrapping up the crown next time out at Silverstone at the end of September.
He was at his battling best to win the opener and then had to cede some ground to his only realistic threat for the silverware – the Excelr8 Hyundai i30 N of Tom Ingram – in race two.
The weekend was capped by a highly dramatic race three in which Team Hard’s Dan Lloyd was robbed of a deserved win when his Cupra R failed with just a handful of corners to go to hand the victory to the Speedworks Toyota of Rory Butcher. Despite the unfavourable reversed-grid draw, Sutton chipped away and claimed a healthy fifth as if to prove his name is virtually etched on the trophy already.
Race 1
The return to the Donington Park Grand Prix layout, some 0.5 miles longer than the smaller format used back in April, was an interesting new twist for the drivers. While most of them had sampled the layout in the mid-season two-day tyre test, it still offered up some unknowns in terms of set-up over a race distance.
As has so often been the case this season, the curve ball didn’t stop Sutton, who powered his Focus to a fifth pole position of the season. It had been a nip-and-tuck qualifying session and Ingram should, by rights, have put his Excelr8 car i30 on pole but a minor slip at Melbourne Hairpin on his flier left him in second spot.
The Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla of Ricky Collard performed acrobatics on his way to third place on the damp-but-drying track, with Colin Turkington fourth in his WSR BMW 330e).
