Is Sutton the greatest BTCC champion?

Tim Harvey is unequivocal: “I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that in any year of Super Touring, Ash Sutton would have been the equal of if not better than the best driver on the grid. He is that good. He would have had no problem adapting to different regulations, different cars at all.

“Remember, he’s the only driver who’s won the title in both front-wheel drive and rear-wheel drive, and that’s just testament to his versatility. You could put him up against Menu, Rydell, Plato, any of them. I genuinely believe there’s an argument to say he is the greatest British Touring Car driver we have ever seen.” 

Harvey’s praise of Sutton, recently crowned as king of the British Touring Car Championship for a record-breaking fifth time, is telling. The 1990s Super Touring era of which he speaks was peak BTCC. Harvey won the title in 1992, then went on to partner series greats Alain Menu and Rickard Rydell. For the past 11 years, he has had the pleasure of watching and analysing Sutton not only as ITV’s pundit, but also as a sometime mentor. 

Regarding the Alliance Racing-run NAPA squad’s twin spearhead of Sutton and Dan Cammish, Harvey expands: “I know both drivers very well. They were both on the BRDC SuperStars programme when I was running it; I looked after Dan personally in his Carrera Cup days and into touring cars with Dynamics. I would love to say Dan is the equal of Ash, and he might be if the circumstances were right, but you have to engineer those circumstances yourself, and at the moment Ash is the one doing it.” 

The bad news for anyone else wishing to win the BTCC is that, by the time you read this, Sutton will have been confirmed for another five years with Alliance and NAPA. That will mean at least 10 seasons with a team he joined for 2022 (when it was still known as Motorbase), already with three titles under his belt.

The move came about after the exit from the BTCC of Team BMR, whose chief Warren Scott had also managed Sutton and had been trying to replace the 2020 and 2021 title-winning Infiniti Q50 with a Jaguar X-type. Pete Osborne, who had bought Motorbase over the 2020-21 winter, had already taken Cammish on board. 

1992 champion Harvey knows of what he speaks

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“We’d signed Dan, and we’d tried to sign Ash and he was busy with the Jaguar project at the time so he wasn’t available,” recalls team manager Oly Collins. “Then Pete rang me and he said the opportunity with Ash is back on the table.

“We went and met with him, and Tony [Carrozza, Sutton’s long-time engineer] was there as well, and there was a caveat that came with it – we had to take his team, and that was his number one mechanic Brenton [Yule, who has since moved to Australia to work in Supercars], Tony and his data engineer Tom [Powell]. It was an absolute no-brainer. We welcomed them all in.” 

“We knew we needed a centrepoint to keep this team together,” says Osborne. “We’d got everything in place, we just needed to make sure we got the driver. We’d got Dan Cammish on board, which was a massive win. I’d tried to get Ash before but I couldn’t. I was gutted.

“That’s the bit for me – I love watching him every weekend. His style, what you get with him is just on a different level, and watching that is phenomenal” Pete Osborne

“He rang me up and said, ‘You know you said you wanted to get me on board? When do I start?’ ‘Tomorrow!’ That was when I thought, ‘Wow, we’ve got something special here’. And he’s proved it. I don’t get fed up of watching him. That’s the bit for me – I love watching him every weekend. His style, what you get with him is just on a different level, and watching that is phenomenal.” 

The key here is that Osborne’s ambition to drive his staff to improve, his willingness to invest, and his commercial skills are offset by his down-to-earth northern matiness: “I do this because we love it as a family [son Sam is a one-time BTCC race winner with Alliance], it’s our hobby, but to be part of this… That’s what Ash is all about, and what he brings to me.” 

Bringing in his own ‘family’ – Carrozza, Powell and Yule – let Sutton hit the ground running, initially with the fourth-generation Ford Focus ST, then the Titanium saloon.

Donington Park a perfect example of Sutton’s capacity to read a race, adapt and respond

Photo by: JEP

“The most remarkable thing about Ash Sutton is he has no weaknesses,” says Harvey. “If I was to list the qualities needed to be a great driver, it’s probably about 30 or 40 things. Not just things like blistering one-lap qualifying pace; it’s also an ability to look after the tyres, defend when you need to, attack when you need to, create opportunities on the track that others wouldn’t do, to deal with pressure, to deal with technical issues and getting the best out of the car with his engineer… 

“Lots of drivers have a lot of those qualities, but they have some weaknesses, off the track as well as on it. It’s about the engineering relationship, the relationship with the sponsor, everything you do inside and outside the car, your preparation. Ash had one slight weakness, which was his impetuosity in races, but that’s been ironed out. He knows how to play the percentages now.” 

“My big thing with Ash is he works unbelievably hard,” says Collins. “But I’ve never worked with a driver with the capacity he has. A lot of drivers can drive fast, certainly in a car already set up for them. The quality in a professional isn’t necessarily the driving element – it’s the feedback, acknowledging the changes and having half an idea of what they’re going to be.

“But with Ash his capacity in the car to read a situation far beyond anyone else is what blows my mind. He’s prepared for every eventuality, so when it happens he can deal with it and react – and 99 times out of 100 his reactions are perfect.  

“A good example was at Donington [in August], when Lewis Gilbert had his massive accident. Ash had seen that; he was driving away from the hairpin on the other side of the circuit, and he knew that a safety car was going to come out, and put himself in a position where he benefited. He reads every flag signal in minute detail, he knows the rules inside out, he knows every driver’s traits that he’s up against, every nuance of every circuit. That’s where the hard work comes in.” 

If he’s such a talent, why not expand upon his cameo outings in the GT World Challenge Europe and move onto a new challenge, one where he could broadcast his name beyond his domestic audience? Well, why would he? At 32 years old, he’s in a comfort zone (albeit a hard-working one) at Alliance, his simulator business is going well, and his young family are everything to him. 

Cleland’s take on Sutton – “I love watching him… he’s one of the best if not the best“ – is high praise indeed

Photo by: JEP

“He’s such a unique talent he could have had a fantastic career in GT racing, Hypercars, Aussie V8s or NASCAR,” says Harvey. “But on the other hand, he can do BTCC 10 weekends a year, he’s earning good money and has job security, and he knows how to do the job perfectly. So why would you not continue a winning formula?” 

“We need to keep these boys – the Tom Ingrams, the Dan Cammishes, the Josh Cooks – that we all know and love, and love racing against each other and pushing each other to the edge,” enthuses Osborne. “It’s something Ash enjoys, I enjoy and NAPA enjoy. 

“I met John Cleland for the first time at Knockhill, and you can imagine I was star-struck. He went, ‘I just want to tell you what a phenomenal team you’ve got’, and I was, ‘Blah blah thanks very much, it’s dead easy when you’ve got somebody who drives like him’.

“He’s such a unique talent he could have had a fantastic career in GT racing, Hypercars, Aussie V8s or NASCAR” Tim Harvey

“And he said, ‘I sit on my sofa every other Sunday and I love watching him, because put him back in the day with the top, top drivers and he’s one of the best if not the best’. To get a compliment like that off someone like that was amazing.”  

Which is exactly where we came in with Harvey’s similar opinion. It’s not often that he and two-time BTCC champion Cleland have been in complete agreement. And it’s even rarer for the acerbic Scot to be so praising of an English team and driver. It’s going to be a formidable task to beat them over the years to come.

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the November 2026 issue and subscribe today.

Sutton celebrates his crowning achievement at Silverstone in September

Photo by: JEP