BTCC Thruxton: Sutton claims yet another win in race two

Once again, the three-time champion led from start to finish in his Motorbase Performance-run Ford Focus ST in another processional race at the front.

As in the first race, reigning title holder Tom Ingram held second position throughout at the wheel of his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N.

Just as earlier, Ingram had some threat from Josh Cook’s One Motorsport Honda Civic Type R – in yet another repeat of race one, this was after shrugging off a challenge over the first half a lap from Jake Hill’s West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport.

There were some small differences from the opening race though. This time it was Sutton, not Cook, who set the fastest lap – and, astonishingly, it was more than a second quicker than anyone else’s best.

This time, the dominant winner did let Ingram get closer – although the Ford was 2.6 seconds in front by the end of the opening lap, the Hyundai trimmed that to just over a second at half-distance, before Sutton pulled away again to win by 2.234s.

“Making history…” said an emotional Sutton. “It’s big, I just can’t thank the team enough.

“The car’s phenomenal and it’s just a joy to drive.”

Ashley Sutton, NAPA Racing UK Ford Focus ST

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Behind Ingram, who had survived an oversteery moment after a tap from Cook at the Complex on the opening lap, which played a small part in Sutton’s escape to victory, Hill appeared to be homing in on Cook during the first few laps.

But the leading BMW fell away as the race wore on and instead had to keep the Motorbase Ford of Dan Cammish at arm’s length during the closing stages for fourth.

Rory Butcher had a good first lap in his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla to get ahead of Cammish straight away and then pass Colin Turkington’s WSR BMW at Noble, the four-time champion ceding a further place to Cammish when this sent him wide.

But Cammish passed Butcher for fifth on the sixth lap of 16, and then Turkington closed on the Toyota.

Butcher was out of hybrid with a couple of laps to go, and Turkington got ahead of him on the penultimate tour for sixth, with Aron Taylor-Smith’s Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra right on the Scotsman’s rear bumper by the finish.

The top 10 was completed by Ricky Collard’s Speedworks Toyota and the One Honda of Aiden Moffat.

Dan Rowbottom fought his Motorbase Ford through from the back of the grid to 11th by passing Adam Morgan’s WSR BMW at Segrave on the final lap – a move the bearded Midlander may regret, because Sutton’s first mistake of the weekend came post-race when he pulled number ‘12’ out of the reversed-grid draw, putting Morgan on pole for the finale.

To rub salt into the wound, Rowbottom was subsequently given a three-place grid penalty for an incident with Ronan Pearson, relegating his Ford to fifth in the starting line-up and elevating Moffat to the front row.

BTCC Thruxton race two results

Cla	Driver		Gap	Interval
1	Ashley Sutton
2	Tom Ingram		2.234	2.234
3	Josh Cook		6.330	4.096
4	Jake Hill		8.730	2.400
5	Dan Cammish		9.580	0.850
6	Colin Turkington		15.734	6.154
7	Rory Butcher		17.003	1.269
8	Aron Taylor-Smith		17.411	0.408
9	Ricky Collard		19.834	2.423
10	Aiden Moffat		23.723	3.889
11	Daniel Rowbottom		24.012	0.289
12	Adam Morgan		24.743	0.731
13	Tom Chilton		25.348	0.605
14	Mikey Doble		29.666	4.318
15	Dexter Patterson		30.737	1.071
16	Andrew Watson		31.039	0.302
17	Stephen Jelley		34.943	3.904
18	Sam Osborne		35.490	0.547
19	Ronan Pearson		35.758	0.268
20	Jack Butel		40.852	5.094
21	Daniel Lloyd		44.785	3.933
22	Nicolas Hamilton		56.787	12.002
23	Nick Halstead		1'03.640	6.853
	Jade Edwards
	Bobby Thompson
	George Gamble
	Will Powell
View full results