Testing report
BTCC
Champion Sutton tops Thruxton BTCC test
Reigning champion Ash Sutton topped the annual Thruxton BTCC test in his Team BMR Subaru Levorg.
Matt James
Edited: Apr 13, 2018, 11:36 AM
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The 24-year-old clocked a 1m15.717s lap around the 2.356-mile circuit, which hosts the third meeting of the championship on May 19/20. It is the only chance drivers get to test on the high-speed circuit all season.
Nine of the drivers were underneath the qualifying lap record of 1m16.040s, which was set by Matt Neal last season in his Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type R.
Sutton said he was stunned by the fastest lap he managed to record.
“I wasn’t even going for a time,” he said. “We were basically here to work through a programme and we did that, so to clock the fastest time is a real bonus.”
Sutton, who is fifth in the championship after the opening three races at Brands Hatch last weekend, was using the older-specification Mountune engine in his estate-shaped Levorg, but said that the team was aiming to switch to the new Swindon Racing Engines-tuned version from the second round of the championship at Donington Park on April 28/29.
“Everybody was very fast today, but I think that is down to the cooler temperatures. I think it was allowing the engines to breath a bit better,” said Sutton. “We showed some remarkable speed given that we haven’t done any testing pre-season.”
The second fastest time was set by Mike Bushell in the Team Hard VW CC. He was 0.026s adrift of Sutton, but said that he felt there had been even more pace in the car.
“I think there is more to come from me as well as from the car, so I am delighted with the lap time we recorded,” said reigning Renault UK Clio Cup champion. “I also did a race-long run to assess the drop off in the tyres, and they held up really well. I am full of optimism about the rounds here.”
Neal was third in the new-shaped Honda Civic Type R but said he was still working on fine-tuning the set-up of the hatchback and he caused two red flags during the morning’s running with throttle problems.
“The engine was working well,” said Neal. “But this is still a journey for us and there is a lot to learn about the car yet.”
Brands race one winner Jack Goff was fourth fastest, even though he lost what would have been his fastest lap when the throttle on his Eurotech Racing Honda Civic Type R failed coming out of the chicane on the afternoon’s one-hour session.
“We have solved that problem now, and it is better to have that during testing than in a race situation,” said Goff. “I did some qualifying runs this afternoon and I did a race run this morning, so I think we are well prepared.”
Twenty-five of the championship’s 32 entrants took part in the running. The absentees were Tom Ingram, Jake Hill, Ollie Jackson, AmDTuning.com MG pair Rory Butcher and Tom Boardman and the two BTC Norlin Honda Civics of Chris Smiley and James Nash.
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