Ash Sutton takes first win of title defence

Ash Sutton secured the first win of his BTCC title defence with victory in the opening race of the weekend at Croft.

Sutton had qualified in pole position for the first time in twelve months on Saturday and made the perfect start when the lights went out to hold the lead into turn one.

An early Safety Car period to remove Rob Austin’s stricken Alfa Romeo from the gravel at turn one gave Sutton early breathing space and the perfect restart saw him then pull away from the pack behind.

That pack was headed initially by Andrew Jordan, who had jumped Jason Plato at the start and ran ahead of the Subaru through the early stages before Plato finally found a way through on the eleventh lap.

Running on the regular tyre compared to the hard on Sutton’s car, Plato closed in on his team-mate ahead but wasn’t able to get close enough to make a bid for the lead – with Sutton securing his first victory of the year.

Plato followed him home to make it a Subaru 1-2 but there was drama behind, as Jordan lost the chance of a podium when he ran off track at Clervaux on lap 14.

That allowed Tom Ingram, who had been putting the BMW under ever-increasing pressure, through into third spot to complete a fine drive in his Speedworks Toyota.

Sam Tordoff took fourth for Motorbase having managed to fend off championship leader Colin Turkington through the closing laps of the race – the pair crossing the line split by just a tenth of a second when the flag dropped.

Rob Collard was close behind in sixth, with Josh Cook, Dan Lloyd, Matt Neal and Jordan rounding out the top ten.

For a number of the championship hopefuls, it would proved to be a race to forget, with Jack Goff only able to make his way up to 21st place by the finish and Adam Morgan amongst those drivers forced to retire with damaged suspension on the rear of his Ciceley-run Mercedes.