Ash Sutton wins Race 2 at Rockingham as Tom Ingram stars

Ash Sutton secured a lights-to-flag win in the second race of the weekend at Rockingham to bring himself firmly back into contention for a second BTCC title.

The defending champion produced an assured drive having jumped ahead of Adam Morgan’s Mercedes off the line to become the first four-time winner of the season despite two safety car periods that closed up the field behind in the early stages of the race.

Sutton made the perfect start when the lights went out and having managed both restarts to perfection, he was able to ease away from Morgan at the front of the pack to wrap up what was ultimately a comfortable race victory.

“We made the right call to go with slicks at the start having gone with wets to the grid,” he said. “It’s like last year in terms of the points but we are getting comfortable with the car in race trim and I can’t fault the team. We need to keep our nose clean in race three and pick up some solid points.”

Behind, Morgan followed up his victory in race one with a solid second place but behind there was a stunning podium finish for Tom Ingram – who had earlier been forced to retire from the opening race with a throttle issue.

Starting from 27th on the grid, Ingram produced one of the drives of the season to storm through the field towards the points.

By the time the safety car was deployed for a second time after just four laps to retrieve Michael Caine’s Volkswagen CC from the gravel – after Stephen Jelley had earlier gone out on lap one – Ingram had got himself into eleventh spot and on the restart was soon pushing his way forwards into the top ten.

A fine move on Matt Simpson and Chris Smiley allowed him to make up two places at once before Ingram chased down and passed title rival Colin Turkington go fifth. Mike Bushell’s VW was dispatched a number of corners later to take fourth and having put Senna Proctor under huge pressure, Ingram sailed through at the final corner when the Vauxhall ran wide across the gravel.

Third spot allowed Ingram to move back ahead in the title race, two points clear of Turkington who would cross the line behind Proctor in fifth.

“I’m knackered,” Ingram said. “I don’t know what we have to keep doing this – I’d like an easy weekend at some point. It was an incredible race and the conditions are those I have loved since dad was too tight to get me wet tyres on my kart. Speedworks have pulled it back from a disaster in race one to get a big haul of points in race two – they only just got us out for that one.”

Sixth spot went to Smiley despite his BTC Norlin car running on the harder compound Dunlop tyre, with Bushell being shuffled back to seventh having run well inside the top three for the majority of the race.

Rory Butcher added to his solid result in race one with another top ten finish in the AmD MG, with the top ten completed by Matt Simpson and Tom Chilton.

The reverse grid draw carried out by Alain Menu will see the top ten reversed on the grid, putting Chilton on pole for Race 3.

Amongst those to hit trouble during the race, Dan Cammish’s Honda was in the wars on more than one occasion as he slipped back to 21st place, with team-mate Matt Neal only able to make his way through to 14th as he continued to try and fight back from his qualifying woes.

Rob Austin and Bobby Thompson both ran well inside the points before being forced to retire after contact on track.