Ash Sutton not changing approach despite commanding points lead

Ash Sutton has stated that he won’t change his approach heading into the next round of the British Touring Car Championship at Croft, despite holding a commanding 98-point lead in the standings.

Closing in on what would be a record-breaking fifth Drivers’ title, the Alliance Racing driver enjoyed yet another strong outing at Donington Park GP this past weekend as he scored a pair of second-place finishes and out-scored his rivals.

Extending his lead over reigning champion Tom Ingram from 81 to 98 points across the meeting, the Ford Focus Titanium driver admitted he has no intentions of taking his foot off the pedal as the series heads into the home stretch of the season.

“It’ll be business as usual for us,” said Sutton. “We’ll head to Croft with the same mindset that we’ve had all year, after all it’s worked for us up until this point so there is no reason why we’d change now.

“Obviously people are mentioning that we’re on course to wrap it up before Brands Hatch but I’m trying not to think about that. For me it is about the next round and doing the best job possible at wherever that is.”

Sutton went from eighth to fourth in Saturday’s Race to Pole and then claimed an impressive second-place finish in a stop-start opening encounter on Sunday.

He then delivered what he described as his ‘best drive on the hard tyre’ in race two as he held on to second place, despite also having just two laps of TOCA Turbo Boost.

“That was the best car I’ve ever had on hard tyres,” he admitted. “The whole balance of the car was in the sweet spot, it almost didn’t feel like we had the hard tyre on at all. That’s come from us just dialling in the car, trying things here and there, etc.

“We’re in a great place at the moment and now we’ll head to Croft – one of my favourite tracks on the calendar – and see what we can do there.”