Ash Sutton admits work to do despite Donington podium

Ash Sutton admits that he has work to do to get the most from his Motorbase-run Ford Focus despite scoring a podium on his debut with the team at Donington Park.

Sutton switches to the NAPA-backed team as he seeks to secure a third BTCC title in a row and could have grabbed pole in qualifying had he not locked himself out of his hybrid at the end of his quick lap.

Having inherited fourth in race one following Jake Hill’s exclusion, Sutton took the flag in sixth in race two before battling his way to second in the reverse grid final race having been unable to match the pace of Jake Hill out front.

It leaves Sutton third in the standings after round one, but he admitted there was more still to come.

“It’s been a learning curve for us this weekend,” he said. “The one lap pace is good but I think we underestimated a little bit the changes that we needed to make on race day as the track developed.

“We made changes across race day but it was only in the final race when we went a bit mad with them, and I think we started to unlock the real potential there is – so we leave Donington with a car that I feel is a lot better.”

Having raced with hybrid power for the first time, Sutton added that he was a fan of the new element of strategy it had introduced to the racing.

“The hybrid side of things has been very interesting, although I don’t think it has quite had the impact that ballast had, when you would put extra weight on and you see cars dropping back quite a bit,” he said.

“I’ve enjoyed using it and it’s another thing that you have to think about as a driver when it comes to the strategy side of things and how we deploy it. For the first weekend, it’s been a good experience.”