Ash Sutton: “There was a little left on the table”

Ash Sutton admitted he left a small amount of time on the table in his bid to snatch pole position away from Tom Ingram at Donington Park this afternoon.

The NAPA Racing UK driver finished 0.051 seconds behind Ingram in a frenetic opening BTCC qualifying session of the campaign to secure a spot on the outside of the front row.

Having featured strongly across all three sections of the new qualifying format, the four-time champion explained that he had to somewhat play it safe to ensure he could be in the mix for the first of tomorrow’s three races.

“I loved it (Quick Six qualifying),” said Sutton. “Fair play to Tom and EXCELR8 for grabbing the pole, nicking it at the end, but I’m happy for the whole team. It was a good performance and I know there was a little left on the table because there were a few moments that I had on my lap.

“I think we could have had it (pole position) but you’ve got to play it safe because you can see how easy it is to get caught out and be knocked out, especially early on. Q1 was chaotic and then in Q2 I said to the boys that there was a good chunk still in it; we found half of it but then we had to toe the line with track limits.

“It’s gonna be interesting,” on the subject of rain being forecast for Sunday. “If its raining then I’m buzzing for that because I love the wet and we have a really good car in those conditions. We’ll see what happens!”