Sutton Stands Tall
With Colin Turkington suffering from some terrible luck at Thruxton, Ash Sutton went into the Silverstone weekend holding a 16-point lead over the four-time champion. Having qualified behind the BMW man, it was game on for Sutton, as he looked to pull out yet another Sutton-esque drive through the field. A two-position gain in race one saw Sutton bring the Infiniti Q50 to fifth, directly behind Turkington in what could be seen as a damage limitation charge in terms of championship points.
It all went to pot in race two, however. Having pulled off a fantastic move around the outside of Turkington at the start of the race, Sutton began to drop down the field after contact early in the race, and was lingering around tenth for the vast majority of the 25-lap encounter. Then, with just five laps to go he dramatically plummeted down the field with a puncture, giving him his first non-score of the season. As if things couldn’t have gone worse for Sutton, race leader Tom Ingram suffered a puncture at the exact same point, handing the lead - and race win - to title rival Turkington.
Starting from 26th on the grid for race three, it was always going to be tough for Sutton to get anything from it, but this is Ash Sutton we’re talking about. He’d managed to gain 12 positions by the time the red flag halted proceedings, and in the restarted 12 lap sprint just continued to claw his way up through the field in what can only be described as a champion’s drive - finishing second at the line. A time penalty for gaining an unfair advantage dropped him back to third, but he still pulled back enough points to hold a slender four-point lead at the top of the table.