History beckons for Ash Sutton

The fight for the 2023 BTCC title draws to a close this weekend at Brands Hatch, with Ash Sutton closing in on what would be a record-equalling fourth championship crown.

Whilst the battle for top honours remains a two-driver affair, Sutton has a healthy lead of 45 points over defending champion Tom Ingram after a stunning season in his NAPA Racing UK Ford Focus.

Already this year, Sutton has taken more wins and more podiums than ever before and the 398 points he has scored surpasses his final score in any of his previous BTCC campaigns.

The last time a driver had such an advantage over the rest going into the final round was back in 2008 when Fabrizio Giovanardi held a 44 point advantage over Jason Plato, although Ingram will take heart from what happened to the Italian that weekend.

Giovanardi failed to break into the points in any of the three races – the only time in his BTCC career that would happen on a weekend – and came away with just a single point for fastest lap in race three, ultimately taking the title by virtue of the fact that Plato failed to score in two of the three races.

Should Sutton run into similar problems as those which hampered Giovanardi more than a decade ago, Ingram will hope to make the most of the pace in his BRISTOL STREET MOTORS with EXCELR8 Hyundai, which has arguably had the legs on the Focus in recent events.

The fact that Ingram has been unable to benefit from that for reasons outside his control make a successful title defence appear unlikely, although he hasn’t yet given up hope of retaining the #1 for another season.

“The title isn’t won yet, and we aren’t going to stop fighting to try and overhaul Ash in the points,” he said. “Okay so we would need luck to be on our side, but I’ve been around the BTCC long enough to know that anything can happen, and that the smallest little thing can have a massive impact on how a weekend pans out.

“We can head for Brands Hatch knowing that in recent events, we’ve had the quicker car, and that is credit to everyone in the team for continuing to work hard to extract more performance from the Hyundai.

“From our side, there is absolutely no pressure as the title is Ash’s to lose at this stage, and we’ll just focus on doing the best job possible from the moment we hit the track in first practice. We can’t control what happens elsewhere, so as long as we maximise what we have, we’ll be able to come away from the weekend with our heads held high regardless of the end result.”

As well as trying to overhaul Sutton, Ingram will be eager to stay ahead of Jake Hill, who arrives at his home circuit no longer in contention for the title after an unfortunate weekend at Silverstone saw technical gremlins end his championship dreams.

Although he will be bidding to help BMW wrap up another manufacturer’s title, Hill has nothing to lose when it comes to the season finale with victory very much the target in his Laser Tools Racing-backed machine.

“I can’t believe we’re already at the final round of the season!” he said. “It’s been a year to remember with my most amount wins in a year and some fantastic races along the way. It hasn’t been without its challenges though but these have taught us some valuable lessons which can only make us stronger.

Brands Hatch is my home event and a circuit I love to race at – it’s my goal to finally get a win here in front of my home support! We go into this weekend looking to end the season in style so we’ll be going full attack from the getgo and try to score some more wins and podiums.”

Colin Turkington sits fourth and would appear set to finish the campaign outside the top three for a second successive season, given the gap to Hill ahead and the margin in place over Josh Cook behind.

Cook clinched the Independents’ title at Silverstone but has yet to score a win this season, with the weekend ahead providing the One Motorsport driver with a final chance to avoid a first winless campaign since 2017.

There is however the small matter of the Independents’ Team title to consider for the Honda racer.

“It’s nice to be able to go into the final weekend of the season knowing that one title is in the bag,” Cook said. “Now it’s all about making sure that we can bring home the Teams’ title; that would be a great reward for everyone’s hard work this season.

“Obviously it hasn’t been the year we’d have hoped for but we’ve been chipping away at things and we’ve made solid progress with both the car and engine. There’s more to come, and hopefully we can show that across Saturday and Sunday.

“Down the years the Brands Hatch GP circuit has been well-suited to our car so I’d like to think that we should be able to mix it towards the front. I’ll be on maximum attack to try and get back on that podium!”

Behind Cook, Dan Cammish will bid to end a wretched run of results to cement his position in the top six ahead of NAPA team-mate Dan Rowbottom, with Ricky Collard, Adam Morgan and Rory Butcher all looking to hold on to their place in the top ten.

Five drivers remain in contention for the Jack Sears Trophy but the top two are team-mates at Power Maxed Racing – with Andrew Watson holding a slender advantage over Mikey Doble.

“When I reflect back to the start of the year, we’ve learnt so much and achieved most of our goals already this season,” Watson said. “I’m looking forward to getting to Brands Hatch, especially off the back of such a positive weekend for the whole team at Silverstone.

“Another podium for me, and a Jack Sears win, there was brilliant. Obviously, I’m looking to go and lift the Jack Sears title this weekend, which would be incredible, but it’s still very tight.”