Ashley Sutton rues missing the front row in Croft qualifying

Triple Eight Racing’s Ashley Sutton just missed the top two in qualifying at Croft after a late improvement from Eurotech Honda driver Daniel Lloyd demoted the MG driver to third. The front-wheel drive pair will start the first sandwiched between the rear-wheel drive Subarus of pole-sitter Colin Turkington and fourth-placed Jason Plato.

“It would have been nice to have been the first front-wheel drive car, but we had a few issues on the flying lap,” said Sutton to TouringCarTimes.

“There was definitely pole in the car, but we didn’t quite hook it up.”

Sutton had two near misses late in the session, with a number of cars sliding off the circuit as they tried to improve their times in the dying moments of qualifying.

“We had one issue coming out of the first chicane, and then one out the back at Turn 12,” said Sutton. “So we did our time on hurt tyres, as I did the big save and then did our (best) time after, and we’d already taken the life out of the tyre.”

Looking ahead to Sunday, the 22-year-old has realistic expectations at the North Yorkshire track which is kinder to rear-wheel drive machinery.

“It’d be nice to pip Dan (Lloyd) off the line at the start, but we know the rear-wheel drives are going to be strong during the race, so it’s probably a matter of lathing onto Colin or Jason or whoever’s around,” he said.