Sutton wins Brands Hatch Indy BTCC Race for Pole

Ash Sutton will start the first race of the second British Touring Car Championship weekend of the season from pole after winning the qualifying "Race For Pole" on the Brands Hatch Indy circuit.

The NAPA Racing UK driver started the 18-lap race on Saturday afternoon from fifth after taking third in his 15 minute timed group session – behind Tom Ingram, who took the pole, and Daryl De Leon – but a first lap skirmish allowed him to leapfrog his way to the front.

West Surrey Racing driver DeLeon took advantage of his BMW’s rear-wheel drive to make a strong start to leapfrog front row starter Dan Cammish and put the pressure on Team Vertu’s Ingram straight away, while Sutton also moved on teammate Cammish from the third row of the grid after fourth placed starter Ricky Collard had a slow get away from the grid.

A move up the inside of Ingram at Graham Hill Bend by DeLeon resulted in the Hyundai driver going wide, opening the door for Sutton to snatch the lead. From there, Sutton capitalized on the clean air to keep DeLeon at arms length – despite only having one second of TOCA Turbo Boost (TTB) at his disposal because of his position as championship leader – to win by 1.632s.

“I didn't expect that,” Sutton told RACER. “I thought it'd be harder. I didn't think we were gonna have as much Lady Luck at the beginning, because he [Ingram] got a clean start, but Ricky bogged down into Turn 1, and then the heavens opened at Turn 3, so [I] made the most of it, got into the clean air and just got my head down, treated a bit like qualifying, ultimately, even though it is, and just had 17 laps of head down as best as I could.

“We knew we were strongest in Sector 1, so we maximized what we could there. We knew the BMW was obviously stronger in Sector 2, so it was just a bit of a yo-yo contest throughout the whole race, but just enough to hang on.”

Behind DeLeon, Cammish finished third after a late push from the recovering Collard, while the first-lap brush with DeLeon left Ingram down in fifth.

Adam Morgan was sixth for Cataclean Plato Racing, ahead of the Power Maxed Racing pair of Mikey Doble and Dexter Patterson, with the Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport pair of Aron Taylor-Smith and Gordon Shedden completed the top 10 after a tense race-long duel.

Fellow Toyota Corolla driver Josh Cook was part of that battle between the MB pair, but became the race's only retirement on lap 17 when he got a puncture.

Tom Chilton and Charles Rainford started in the top 10 but finished 15th and 16th respectively after Morgan made contact with the BMW drive which collected Team Vertu driver Chilton, who initially fell to the back of the field.

The qualifying race win for Sutton is a stark contrast to his qualifying result at Donington Park three weeks ago where he ended Saturday in the gravel but rebounded on the Sunday to take a second and two wins.

“I’ve tested both ends of the spectrum,” Sutton said. “We tested the gravel out at Donington, and we've managed to come away with a pole here. There was an element that if someone got into us, or was around us, or anything like that, if they looked quite fiery or faster, I was probably going to give it up and not sort of sacrifice any damage again, or any trips to the gravel, but it wasn't the case. Our car’s in a mega place, which is making my life a little bit easier.”

But what won’t make his life easy will be the fast-starting rear-wheel-drive BMW 330i M Sport of DeLeon alongside his front-wheel-drive Ford Focus Titanium Saloon on the front row of the grid on Sunday morning.

“I'll be shocked if he doesn't beat me to Turn 1,” Sutton admitted. “You saw there, even from P3, he managed to make the jump on pretty much both of them [on the front row].

“So if he doesn't clear me by Turn 1 from the front row, then they've got something going on wrong. But I'll do my best. Obviously we've got to also think about the whole day, [but] we've got ourselves in a good place now.”

QUALIFYING RACE RESULTS

QUALIFYING TIMES RESULTS

• Watch all three British Touring Car races on the Brands Hatch Indy circuit LIVE on RACER Network and the RACER+ App at 6:15am, 9:30am and 12:15pm (all ET).