Race report
BTCC Snetterton
Snetterton BTCC: Sutton passes Turkington for Race 2 win
Reigning British Touring Car champion Ash Sutton sliced through the field to take a stunning win from 11th on the grid in the second race of the Snetterton round.
Marcus Simmons
Edited: Jun 15, 2021, 9:30 AM
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With no success ballast on his Laser Tools Racing Infiniti, Sutton opted for the soft option tyre, and was already up to seventh by the end of the opening lap.
Just before half-distance, Sutton passed Ollie Jackson for second into the Wilson hairpin, and on the ninth lap of 12 he managed to get ahead of first-race winner Colin Turkington, who had led all the way from pole position, into the Agostini left-hander.
Sutton had taken no time to chomp into a Turkington lead that stood at three seconds when the Infiniti moved into second, but as soon as he was ahead he went into tyre-preservation mode for his soft Goodyears, with the track temperature now up to 36 degrees – six degrees higher than the opening race.
It looked like Turkington’s West Surrey Racing-run BMW might be able to reclaim the advantage, but in reality Sutton had it all under control as he crossed the finish line 0.451s in front.
“Where we were starting the day [from 15th on the grid for race one], it was always going to be really hard,” Sutton.
“I wanted to make more progress than I did in race one, but the car was phenomenal – absolutely awesome.
“The tyres were on their last legs, because ultimately the mediums were stronger across the race.”
Turkington was carrying the maximum 75kg of success ballast on the BMW, and his result moves him into the championship lead by three points over Sutton, who also claimed fastest lap, as pre-race points leader Jake Hill faded dramatically to 24th place.
Hill was another to go for the option tyre, and was now down to 15kg of ballast on his Motorbase-run MB Motorsport Ford. He ran in seventh place until after half-distance, but severe front-tyre wear ruined his race.
Teammate Jackson was also fighting a battle with his option tyres, but did a mighty job to fend off the Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N of Tom Ingram for third.
From fifth on the grid, Jackson made an utterly sensational start, just clipping the back of the rear-wheel-drive BMW of Stephen Jelley as he kept it pinned to emerge from the Wilson hairpin in second.
Jackson had no answer to Sutton, but stood firm against Ingram, who again gained a strong haul of points.
Rory Butcher continued his good day to take fifth in the Speedworks Motorsport-operated Toyota, but he too had a fight on his hands in the closing stages.
Butcher narrowly fended off the WSR BMWs of Tom Oliphant and Stephen Jelley, and Jelley lost seventh on the final lap to the second LTR Infiniti of Aiden Moffat.
Unfortunately for Moffat, a 5s time penalty for an out-of-position start relegates him to 10th, and promotes Jelley to seventh.
And extremely fortunately for Jelley, Moffat’s teammate Sutton drew the number seven for the reversed grid, meaning Jelley starts the finale from pole.
Adam Morgan took eighth in his Ciceley Motorsport BMW and Jack Goff ninth in the lead Team Hard Cupra once Moffat’s penalty was applied, while Gordon Shedden progressed only from 15th to 12th in his Team Dynamics Honda.
Race 2 results:
Cla Nº Driver Car / Engine Delay 1 1 Ash Sutton Infiniti 2 2 Colin Turkington BMW 0.451 3 48 Ollie Jackson Ford 8.603 4 80 Tom Ingram Hyundai 8.769 5 6 Rory Butcher Toyota 10.524 6 15 Tom Oliphant BMW 10.859 7 12 Stephen Jelley BMW 12.065 8 33 Adam Morgan BMW 13.364 9 31 Jack Goff Cupra 13.662 10 16 Aiden Moffat Infiniti 16.204 11 22 Chris Smiley Hyundai 16.228 12 52 Gordon Shedden Honda 16.577 13 123 Daniel Lloyd Vauxhall 16.925 14 18 Senna Proctor Honda 17.295 15 66 Josh Cook Honda 18.605 16 32 Daniel Rowbottom Honda 21.190 17 41 Carl Boardley Infiniti 22.534 18 40 Árón T.-Smith Cupra 26.536 19 4 Sam Osborne Ford 26.720 20 11 Jason Plato Vauxhall 39.770 21 21 Jessica Hawkins Ford 42.017 22 96 Jack Butel Hyundai 42.534 23 99 Jade Edwards Honda 42.734 24 24 Jake Hill Ford 44.681 25 28 Nicolas Hamilton Cupra 47.417 26 23 Sam Smelt Toyota 48.429 27 62 Rick Parfitt Hyundai 56.019 - 88 Glynn Geddie Cupra - 3 Tom Chilton BMW
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