Ash Sutton: “Sometimes it’s better to be behind”

Ash Sutton admitted he wasn’t concerned at losing his lead in the BTCC standings over the course of the weekend at Thruxton, insisting that being the chaser may be a better position to sit in going into the next round of the year at Croft.

The BMR Racing man had held a slender advantage in the championship race heading to Hampshire after a consistent start to the season that had seen him take three podium finishes from the opening six races.

Qualifying seventh with his ballast heavy Subaru Levorg in Hampshire, Sutton found himself going backwards in each of the three races at a circuit that doesn’t favour the car with his best result coming in race three where he was able to take third place after starting from the reverse grid pole.

That helped him to minimise his losses to new joint leaders Colin Turkington and Rory Butcher, with the former champion happy to head away from the third round of the campaign just five points off the lead.

“It’s one of those situations where I think we’re better off not leading the championship heading away from here as we’ve lost some weight going into the next round,” he said. “At the same time, we’re still close in the points, which is the main thing.

“This was damage limitation for us and in qualifying we over acheived. We haven’t had the pace and that showed in the races where we went backwards from where we started every time. We’ve been given a bit of a kick up the backside, but luckily it didn’t hurt too much.”

Croft next time out is a cirucit that has traditionally favoured rear-wheel drive cars, but Sutton admitted that resurfacing work carried out over the winter may negate that advantage.

“I hope the circuits to come will favour us but the resurfacing of Croft may favour the front wheel drive cars and bring them back into it,” he said. “That is something that wouldn’t be nice for us, as it is a track that has always been better suited to the Subaru and the BMW.

“Should that change, it would be another blow for us when we already have to come to Thruxton twice when it probably our weakest circuit and we’ve lost Rockingham where we were always strong. These are all things that are going to work against us with this car, and it means we just have to work extra hard.”