Ashley Sutton is targeting improvements to his tyre management ahead of this year’s British Touring Car Championship after citing it as his biggest downfall at points during his rookie season.
The MG RCIB Insurance driver stormed a maiden pole position and race victory during his debut campaign, as well as securing the Jack Sears Trophy and 13th overall in the standings behind the wheel of the MG6 GT.
The 2015 Clio Cup UK champion has yet to ink a new deal for the forthcoming campaign, and speaking to TouringCars.net at the annual Autosport International Show, he admitted the pressure on his shoulders has increased after last season’s superlative display.
“There is a little bit of pressure, obviously we came in and we put on quite a good show so I’ve got to live up to that, at least, let alone better it. Hopefully we can get our seat secured in a good car and push on from there.” he commented.
Both Sutton and fellow Clio Cup graduate Josh Cook both made the step up to the works MG outfit from the feeder series and Power Maxed Racing respectively, securing 5th overall in the Teams Championship.
Teamwork became synonymous with the tight-knit duo, but Sutton revealed both had to work on their achilles heel, and with Dunlop introducing new compounds for this season he believes mastering the new rubber will be the key to maintaining his form.
“The tyre management, for me – that was the big killer.” he admitted.
“That took a lot of potential podiums from myself and Josh [Cook] so that was something we really focused on from Croft onwards and it showed in the results, suddenly we were always up in the top five, so it was good to do that change, but now we’ve got to work on it again.
“Like Tom [Ingram] said, the more you can make the bad races good races, that’s when points add up and at the end of the day, that’s what you need to do to win a championship.”
Sutton expects to confirm his plans for this year’s championship in the coming weeks.
The Autosport International Show concludes tomorrow [Sunday 15th January] at the NEC in Birmingham.