Ash Sutton heads season launch test

Defending champion Ash Sutton topped the times in the afternoon session to end the BTCC’s season launch test with the quickest time.

The Motorbase Performance driver set a best lap of 1:15.607s at the wheel of his Ford Focus which allowed him to beat Jake Hill’s morning benchmark by a tenth of a second, with Dan Rowbottom’s quickest afternoon time seeing him take third.

With Tom Ingram’s morning time for EXCERL8 being good enough for fourth place, the top four places went to four different cars, with Gordon Shedden grabbing fifth spot despite his track time being limited after his clash in the morning session with Stephen Jelley’s BMW.

Dan Cammish was sixth quickest in the second of the NAPA Racing-entered Fords, with the BMWs of Adam Morgan and Colin Turkington rounding out the top eight.

Showing the pace of the leading runners across the day, all eighth were able to dip below the existing lap record, set by Ingram back in 2020.

Dan Lloyd’s Hyundai and Jason Plato’s BTC Racing Honda rounded out the top ten.

In total, 26 of the 28 cars present featured on the end of day timesheets, with the two exceptions being the Team HARD-run cars of Rick Parfitt and Nic Hamilton – although the latter did make it out on track.

Aiden Moffat was unable to set a time having been restricted to just two laps, whilst Bobby Thompson also faced issues on his Cupra as he managed only nine laps in the morning.

Michael Crees was unable to set a time during the morning but logged 36 laps in the afternoon on his first run with the hybrid system in place.