BTCC Croft: Sublime Sutton wins on hard tyres

Ash Sutton put in a sublime drive at Croft to extend his British Touring Car Championship points lead in the second race – despite hard-compound tyres on a damp track.

Sutton started his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium on the front row alongside the polesitting Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport of Josh Cook, and passed the West Countryman around the outside into Tower bend on the opening lap.

Cook, Sutton and Tom Ingram were all compelled to use the hard tyres in this race due to their top-three finishes in race one – and with the track only now beginning to dry out following the earlier rain, this would surely be an insurmountable challenge against the soft rubber on which everyone else bar Mikey Doble started.

While Sutton sailed into a clear lead, Ingram worked his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback past Cook exiting the chicane on the fourth lap, and the Toyota now came under threat from the soft-shod cars behind.

Daryl De Leon had just got past Ricky Collard for fourth, but some argy-bargy with Cook at the complex resulted in contact and the West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport spinning down the order, Collard taking avoiding action, and Dan Rowbottom somehow leapfrogging all of them for third in his CPRL Mercedes A35 Saloon.

Rowbottom pulled off a move on Ingram, on the seventh lap of 15, around the outside into the Jim Clark Esses, and Collard quickly nipped past his Excelr8 Hyundai team-mate into the hairpin.

Tom Ingram, Team VERTU

Photo by: JEP

Now Rowbottom and Collard were second and third, on advantageous tyres, and with a significant surfeit of TOCA Turbo Boost over Sutton. The leading Ford’s advantage was 5.6 seconds, with eight laps remaining.

But before long, news came through that Rowbottom and Collard had each been penalised 5s for track-limits offences. Even if they caught and passed Sutton, the win seemed in the bag for the four-time champion.

Although Rowbottom trimmed the on-the-road gap to 1.073s by the chequered flag, Sutton still completed a seemingly impossible task: victory on the hard tyres with a TTB deficit, and in the damp to boot.

“It’s not often I’ve been welled up over a race win,” said Sutton. “Tony [Antonio Carrozza, his engineer] came over the radio and said, ‘I thought second place in race two at Donington [also on hard tyres] was spectacular, but that was phenomenal.’ And that broke me up a bit.

“We’re in such a sweet spot on the hard tyres, that it kind of negates it a little. From the moment I came over the line to start lap two, Tony said, ‘Right, qualifying laps, go.’”

After losing positions to Rowbottom and Collard, Ingram came under attack from the Alliance Ford of Dan Cammish, who had been the highest-placed starter on soft tyres but made a poor start.

Dan Cammish, NAPA Racing UK Ford Focus ST

Cammish thought he saw a gap at Sunny In, but Ingram moved across to close the door, and the contact sent the Hyundai onto the grass and, eventually, into a head-on impact with the barrier at Sunny Out, the reigning champion retiring to the pits.

Cammish’s fourth place – too far behind Rowbottom and Collard to benefit from their penalties– means he moves ahead of Ingram into second in the standings, but a gargantuan 114 points adrift of Sutton.

Charles Rainford shadowed Cammish to the finish line for fifth in his West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport. Behind him, Aiden Moffat (Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon) got the better of Gordon Shedden (Speedworks Toyota) on the final lap for sixth, only for a track-limits penalty to drop Moffat to ninth in the results.

Behind that Scottish civil war, Cook – on his hard tyres – did a great job to fend off an ever-growing train of cars, before Dan Lloyd inflicted race-ending damage to the Toyota at Tower on the penultimate lap.

With Moffat’s penalty, Lloyd’s Restart Racing Hyundai moved up to seventh in the results ahead of Tom Chilton (Excelr8 Hyundai). Tenth – and reversed-grid pole – went to Doble, whose use of the hard tyres in that race means his PMR Audi will go to the start for the finale on soft rubber.

BTCC Croft - Race 2 results

RACE2

All Stats

 

Cla	Driver	#		Car	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h	Retirement	Points
1	A. Sutton NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus Titanium	15	21'00.440		89.97		20
2	D. Rowbottom Cataclean Plato Racing			Mercedes A35 Saloon	15	+6.073 21'06.513	6.073	89.54		17
3	R. Collard Team Vertu			Hyundai i30N	15	+7.165 21'07.605	1.092	89.46		15
4	D. Cammish NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus Titanium	15	+9.778 21'10.218	2.613	89.28		13
5	C. Rainford West Surrey Racing			BMW 330i M Sport	15	+10.856 21'11.296	1.078	89.20		11
6	G. Shedden Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	15	+18.581 21'19.021	7.725	88.66		10
7	D. Lloyd Restart Racing			Hyundai i30N	15	+20.335 21'20.775	1.754	88.54		9
8	T. Chilton Team Vertu			Hyundai i30N	15	+22.246 21'22.686	1.911	88.41		8
9	A. Moffat LKQ Euro Car Parts with Power Maxed Racing			Audi A3 Saloon	15	+23.197 21'23.637	0.951	88.34		7
10	M. Doble LKQ Euro Car Parts with Power Maxed Racing			Audi A3 Saloon	15	+23.657 21'24.097	0.460	88.31		6
11	L. Gilbert West Surrey Racing			BMW 330i M Sport	15	+24.204 21'24.644	0.547	88.28		5
12	D. Patterson Steel Seal with Power Maxed Racing			Audi A3 Saloon	15	+24.458 21'24.898	0.254	88.26		4
13	D. De Leon West Surrey Racing			BMW 330i M Sport	15	+27.690 21'28.130	3.232	88.04		3
14	C. Smiley Restart Racing			Hyundai i30N	15	+28.245 21'28.685	0.555	88.00		2
15	A. Morgan Cataclean Plato Racing			Mercedes A35 Saloon	15	+29.274 21'29.714	1.029	87.93		1
16	A. Taylor-Smith Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	15	+32.114 21'32.554	2.840	87.74
17	L. Selby NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus Titanium	15	+33.951 21'34.391	1.837	87.61
18	S. Osborne NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus Titanium	15	+39.829 21'40.269	5.878	87.21
19	N. Hamilton Team Vertu			Hyundai i30N	15	+44.238 21'44.678	4.409	86.92
20	R. Bensley Speedworks Corolla Racing			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	15	+47.233 21'47.673	2.995	86.72
21	N. Halstead Steel Seal with Power Maxed Racing			Audi A3 Saloon	15	+56.409 21'56.849	9.176	86.12
dnf	J. Cook Speedworks Corolla Racing			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	14	+1 Lap 20'07.769	1 Lap	87.63	Retirement
dnf	T. Ingram Team Vertu			Hyundai i30N	9	+6 Laps 13'40.456	5 Laps	82.93	Retirement
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