Ash Sutton was critical of Colin Turkington for cutting the chicane at the start of the second British Touring Car Championship race at Croft, with the Subaru driver being unable to pass the BMW driver thereafter.
Sutton started the race from pole position after his win in race one, but a poor getaway allowed Team BMW’s Turkington to get into the lead at the first turn.
Sutton then pulled alongside heading into the chicane, but Turkington opted to cut the corner on the inside instead of go into the kink side-by-side, ultimately emerging in front of the Subaru driver.
With Sutton unable to pass Turkington for the remainder of the race, despite remaining all over the back of the BMW, he was left feeling slightly frustrated after the race.
“I managed to get in front of Colin before the chicane on lap one,” said Sutton to TouringCars.Net. “I was ahead of him and he decided to straight line the chicane. There was no contact made whatsoever.
“Obviously he then straight-lined it and came out in front, so I’m not quite sure how that works. I went into the chicane with that overlap, and when I came out he was in front of me.
“I think he realised he’d made an error, and that was his way of trying to retrieve his error, but at the end of the day he gained an advantage and that’s not on.”
Despite missing out on the win, Sutton’s two podiums at the North Yorkshire circuit so far have lifted him closer to the lead of the championship, with the 23-year-old now just 30 points behind series leader Gordon Shedden.
“We’ve picked up two good solid race results, and we did one of those races on the hard tyre, so to achieve a race win on the hard tyre was a great performance.”
Four of the top ten runners in front of Sutton still have to run the less-favourable harder option tyre in race three – something which he believes will also work in his favour.
“Everyone else has still got that [hard tyre] to come yet. I think the majority of the top ten are on the hard tyre, so I’m the only one around on the standard compound; fingers crossed that plays into our hands.”