Photo: PSP Images

Ash Sutton tops opening practice at Donington Park

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Ash Sutton topped the times in the opening practice session of the new BTCC season at Donington Park as all 27 cars made it out on track ahead of round one.

The session marked the first time that two of the Team HARD Cupras – those of Jade Edwards and Bobby Thompson – had turned laps although the latter was one of three cars not to set a time alongside the Honda of Josh Cook and the Hyundai of defending champion Tom Ingram, who stopped on track mid-way through the session to bring out a red flag.

At the front, Sutton would save his best lap until the end of the session as he become the only driver to break the 1:08s banner, with a storming time of 1:07.975 putting him nearly half a second clear of the BMW of Colin Turkington, with Jake Hill a tenth of a second further back in third.

Ricky Collard showed strong pace with the new engine in the Toyota Corolla to set the fourth quickest time ahead of the Ford of Dan Rowbottom and Stephen Jelley’s BMW.

Adam Morgan, Dan Cammish, Ronan Pearson and Tom Chilton rounded out the top ten.