Photo: PSP Images

Ash Sutton benefits from winter work

Ash Sutton said he was pleased to benefit from winter work from the Motorbase team after another double win at Thruxton saw him extend his BTCC points lead.

Sutton was able to stick his Ford Focus on pole for the second meeting in succession before dominating races one and two – both of which he led from start-to-finish without being troubled by the pack behind.

Although unable to make progress from twelfth place in race three, Sutton was able to leave the fourth round of the campaign having extended his lead over Tom Ingram having become the first driver to score a double win in three successive events since the series introduced three races on a weekend.

“It’s been another good weekend,” he said. “A lot of the changes we made to the car over the winter were focused on the medium and high-speed stuff so we expected it to favour us here and it has done. I think I had it too nice in races one and two with the clear air and we suffered a bit with the balance in race three when we were in the dirty air.

“In the first two races, I had expected Tom to come at me more in the early stages, and we broke away quicker than I expected to. It was a lot harder in race three as the aerowash behind the others was really impacting the car. We were the last car in the train, and there was no hope really of making up ground.

“Oulton Park is a circuit where I think we’ll be strong again next time out, so we go there with a clean slate and try and put ourselves in a good place.”