Why the BTCC remains unpredictable even with runaway title leader Sutton

However crafty British Touring Car Championship organiser TOCA is with its drafting of the sporting regulations, there seems little anyone can do to prevent Ash Sutton waltzing to his record-breaking fifth title.

The sixth instalment of the season, at Knockhill, provided one more race win for Sutton at the wheel of his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium. And, with another combination of miscues and bad fortune hitting his main rival, reigning champion Tom Ingram, the points gap between the duo has ballooned from 59 to 81. In other words, Sutton’s advantage now stands at pretty much the equivalent of four race wins – with just four weekends to go.

But… this is the BTCC. Even when the championship seems settled, there are always intriguing parallel storylines to whet the appetite for what might come over the remainder of the season – or maybe even into 2027.

Last time out at Thruxton, this was Josh Cook wringing pole-and-race-winning speed out of the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport at a circuit that, paradoxically, should have been least suited to the aero qualities of a stubby little hatchback. At Knockhill, it was Adam Morgan and Dan Rowbottom starring at the wheel of their Plato Racing Mercedes A35 Saloons at a circuit that, erm, should have been least suited to their sleek, aerodynamically super-efficient and kerb-loathing weaponry.

Work that one out, because even the drivers themselves were surprised. “We came into the weekend with, ‘Christ, this is going to be a tough one’,” admitted Rowbottom. Morgan added: “We came here and you’re always optimistic, but in the back of your mind you’re ‘this car, I don’t know how well it’s going to go round here. It’s not really suited to an up-and-down, kerb-hopping track.’ But straight out of the box it’s been fantastic, and the car’s doing what I want it to do. It’s stopping well, it’s rotating, it’s compliant over the kerbs, good landing. So I felt confident right from the off.”

That confidence propelled Morgan to fastest in qualifying (for the first time since the 2018 Rockingham round in the Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes A-Class), qualifying race victory and his first full-points Sunday success since the Thruxton 2022 event (in a Ciceley BMW 330i M Sport). A second place in the reversed-grid finale rounded things off nicely for the amiable Lancastrian. Rowbottom, hot on the heels of giving the Plato team its maiden Sunday podium at Thruxton, was second to Morgan in race one, and repeated that result on the unfavourable medium tyres in the sequel. How things have turned around.

Of course, ever-garrulous team principal Jason Plato has let it be known to all and sundry that, this time last year, his organisation didn’t even have a cheque book, let alone any premises, tools or machinery. It’s little wonder that the car build was completed only just in time for the official pre-season tests. Rowbottom looked good first time out at Donington Park with an inherited qualifying race win, but as the season chugged through its first four rounds the Mercs appeared to suffer with tyre degradation plus lack of straight-line speed. The drivers were also reporting a lack of feel from the brakes – hardly what you need at Knockhill. A two-day test at Pembrey before the Thruxton round solved some problems, although the cars were still awful over the kerbs, and in the two-week interval before Knockhill more work was done on chassis and dampers. The result was spectacular.

Morgan spearheaded a breakthrough weekend for Plato's team

Photo by: JEP

We need here to add in the proviso that the Saturday and race one form came with both Morgan and Rowbottom allowed the maximum allocation of TOCA Turbo Boost, owing to their relatively lowly championship positions. And that has a big effect at Knockhill. Although it’s impossible to access the full 20 seconds per lap of TTB (because it can only be used in 5s bursts, with a time ‘lockout’ before you can hit the button again), those on maximum boost can still get around 15-17s of joy over a lap time of a mere 50s. No wonder Sutton (1s per lap) and Ingram (3s) were buried in the midfield on the qualifying race grid.

But mitigating that slightly was the Knockhill weather. While the south of England continued to bask in a heatwave, Central Scotland on Sunday morning was a misery of 12C temperatures and rain, warm jackets and woolly hats. These were the conditions in which Morgan and Rowbottom finished 1-2 as Plato Racing collected its first full-points Sunday victory. The power of the TTB was lessened by the conditions, although admittedly it still gave an advantage.

What was impressive was Rowbottom’s performance in the drier conditions of race two. Here, he was down to five laps of TTB (to the maximum 14). And, with this being a soft/medium weekend for the Goodyear tyre allocation, he, Morgan and Gordon Shedden were compelled by their top three positions in the opener to run the medium compound in the next battle. Rowbottom set the quickest lap time of the seven on mediums in this race, within 0.4s of race winner Sutton’s benchmark on the softs. Rowbottom’s effort was comfortably eclipsed by several of those on mediums in the finale, but track conditions in race two were dampish off-line, especially in the early going when the quick lap times are all set.

In the rain of Sunday morning, Sutton came alive, carving through to fourth. After a late safety car, it looked as though he might be good for demoting the Speedworks-run Laser Tools Toyota of Shedden, but the Knockhill commercial boss was three-time BTCC champion for a reason, and his ever-superb defence was impregnable

“When I’ve been on a tyre offset, I’ve never had a car I can really compete with before,” remarked Rowbottom, who is a director of the Plato squad. “We’ve always had a big delta. And we may now have just found one…

“We’re very confident with the product we’ve got now. It’s taken longer than we’d all have liked, but I think maybe it’s fair to say that we all underestimated the challenge of building a brand-new team from scratch and getting out there and punching with these guys. Some of these guys have had their cars for five, six, seven years now.”

That’s not quite the case with Sutton, however. OK, the Focus Titanium saloon shape was grafted onto the old ST hatchback chassis over the winter, but it has given everything the team had hoped it would when it sought to eradicate those inefficiencies. The TTB deficit ensured that Sutton lined up on the eighth row for the qualifying race, after a fifth-row effort was deleted for a track-limits offence. And he could only make progress up to 11th, in the wake of team-mate Dan Cammish (himself on just 5s per lap TTB) by the end of the short sprint.

A superb drive in the wet in race one set up Sutton's now-customary race win in the second encounter

Photo by: JEP

In the rain of Sunday morning, Sutton came alive, carving through to fourth. After a late safety car, it looked as though he might be good for demoting the Speedworks-run Laser Tools Toyota of Shedden, but the Knockhill commercial boss was three-time BTCC champion for a reason, and his ever-superb defence was impregnable. Fourth place did benefit Sutton for the rest of the day, since he could go to soft tyres for race two, but it was a close-run thing: the time lost behind Shedden meant Ingram’s Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback was almost overlapping him at the finish line.

Ingram was in his own TTB mire on Saturday, qualifying on the sixth row, but with a third-row time deleted for track limits. He got up to ninth in the qualifying race, and could only stay ahead of Sutton for a lap in the rain on Sunday. All, however, looked good for race two: the title ‘rivals’ were starting fourth and fifth, and the highest-placed on the grid with soft tyres.

Ingram had been suffering with an engine ‘issue’, but worse was to come. As the pack arrived at the chicane on the first lap, the concertina effect of cars braking forced him into the back of Shedden, damaging the Hyundai’s radiator and causing an early bath. “I had exactly the same problem as I did in the first race – no power off the line,” he sighed. “We got going and coming into the chicane Gordon checked up as they checked up in front of him, and I ran into the back of him.” It didn’t like a clash that should have caused such damage. “I think there must be a fairly significant crash structure in the back of that Toyota,” he observed wryly.

Sutton, meanwhile, had little trouble in clearing the medium-tyred Mercs for victory. “We didn’t know how it was going to be with Tom,” he reflected. “He was obviously going to be as fast, if not faster. It’s a shame he had his DNF. We want to keep it entertaining, we want to keep it close. But at the same time we don’t know when my bad luck’s going to kick in, so we need to capitalise when we can.”

And, actually, it kind of did after he’d taken the chequered flag. Sutton dropped a howler when he pulled the number ‘12’ in the reversed-grid draw, meaning he was stuck in the midfield for the finale – and on the medium tyres. He got up to ninth before mid-race, but assorted attacks and shenanigans at the hairpin on two consecutive laps dumped him out of the top 15 points-scoring positions with a damaged Focus. Still, he recovered to 12th.

But the good luck was that this was only two positions adrift of Ingram, whose early race two exit meant he started this one from 22nd on the grid. The Hyundai, with a new engine installed, was making decent progress, only to lose time trying to pass Sutton’s team-mate Lewis Selby. From here, he progressed back up to finish 10th.

There was some Excelr8 joy though. Ricky Collard had scrapped his way to third in race two, and next it was the turn of Tom Chilton. The cheerful Surrey veteran had been on a recovery mission since contact with Dexter Patterson at the chicane had dumped him to the back of the field in race one, and was overjoyed when his 12th place in race two became the reversed-grid pole. Particularly since he had used his medium tyres, and was therefore the only one of the top five on the grid able to fit softs.

Chilton gave the Excelr8 team something to celebrate with victory in race three

Photo by: JEP

Chilton wasn’t going to throw this gilt-edged opportunity away – “I was in Edinburgh before everyone else was in second gear!” he chuckled of his start – and only began to get nervous once the soft-tyred Morgan appeared in second place. But the Plato Merc had a TTB deficit and, besides, was barely any quicker (0.031s) than the leading Hyundai. Victory was secure, with Cammish the best of the medium-tyred runners in third.

This might not have been the case though. A first-lap puncture forced sixth-starting Shedden to the pits. Once back on track, a lap down, the soft-tyred Toyota lapped an amazing half-second quicker than anyone else. What might have been?

"The pace this weekend has been outrageous. When you get it into that place, you can’t wait to get out there and give it everything" Adam Morgan

And while those NAPA folk browse their IKEA catalogue for a new trophy cabinet, might Plato Racing be forced to start clearing a space in its Wellingborough premises for its first? “We have had a bit of crap luck over the course of the year,” grinned the overwhelmed Morgan. “We had a mechanical issue at Oulton [crank sensor]; we were taken out at Brands, and that kind of ruins not just that race but the next one. So we’ve been on the back foot a bit.

“The pace this weekend has been outrageous. When you get it into that place, you can’t wait to get out there and give it everything. The biggest takeaway for me this weekend is the car works in the wet and the dry. And if you’ve got a car that does that, you’re in a pretty good place.”

And it would be appropriate to point out that, for next time out at Donington, Morgan and Rowbottom – eighth and ninth respectively in the points – are still about within the ranks of those on maximum TTB. Are you ready for a purple-and-whitewash?

Can Plato Racing carry its Knockhill momentum into Donington Park?

Photo by: JEP