Ashley Sutton “over the moon” with first BTCC victory at Croft
Triple Eight Racing’s Ashley Sutton charged from fifth at the end of lap one to first in the rain at Croft to score his first victory in only his 15th British Touring Car Championship start. Sutton also scored 48 from of a maximum possible 67 points during the weekend to leap from 11th to seventh in the BTCC drivers’ championship.
The 22-year-old was jumped by West Surrey Racing’s Jack Goff at the start and fell to fifth, but picked his way forward during the race, passing Goff’s BMW, Colin Turkington’s Subaru, Tom Ingram’s Toyota and eventually the BMW of championship leader Sam Tordoff to take his first win, also the first for Triple Eight of the season.
“I’m over the moon with that,” said Sutton to TouringCarTimes. “For me it’s been a long time coming. We got our first pole at Donington, then to get our first podium at the start of this weekend was great, and when I knew we had a chance for a win I knew we had to give it a go.
“The car was on rails, the team did a fantastic job. Let’s say the planets aligned and it all fell into place.”
This was the first wet weather race of the season, and Sutton admitted it was a combination of his own experience in wet conditions and the team’s know-how that helped.
“I’ve always been strong in the wet, no matter what the car is, so I know I favour the wet weather more than I do in the dry, but the car was also phenomenal, and the team did a fantastic job with the set-up.”
Although the MG driver is now up to seventh in the standings, just 49 points behind championship leader Sam Tordoff, he says his focus is still on the BTCC’s rookie class, the Jack Sears Trophy, for 2016, considering his main threat will come from Eurotech’s new signing Dan Lloyd.
“I’m just focussing on the Jack Sears, hopefully we can pick some points up in the main, but we have a few bad tracks coming up for us.
“Dan Lloyd is there or thereabouts so we’ve got to keep our eye on him.”
