Laser Tools Racing‘s Ash Sutton began the defence of his British Touring Car Championship title with an impressive last ditch pole position at Thruxton today (8 May) in a brilliant qualifying session.
Sutton will start ahead of potential championship rivals in BTC Racing‘s Josh Cook, Team BMW‘s Colin Turkington, Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com‘s Tom Ingram and Toyota Gazoo Racing UK‘s Rory Butcher with the latter two in particular topping the times themselves up to the chequered flag.
“Obviously we’ve been thriving in wet conditions all day and the balance was mega then. We were sitting at the top of the times in the wet and then you start hearing people are going out on slicks and you think ‘alright, let’s dig deep’. The front-wheel drive cars can generate a bit more heat quicker than us, so we had to spend a lot more time doing it, but it came good in the end,” said Sutton post qualifying.
“We’ve made a few quite dramatic tweaks from last year and that paid off in the dry because that’s normally our downside. I think I’ll stick to having this number one on the car – it’s given me some good luck.”