Laser Tools Racing’s Ash Sutton was full of praise for his Infiniti Q50 after storming from the back of the grid to second in the final British Touring Car Championship race of the day at Silverstone.
After suffering a front-left puncture in the second encounter and losing the championship lead, Sutton made immediate progress in the final race to scythe through the pack before the first start was then red-flagged following a heavy accident for Rory Butcher’s Ford Focus ST.
Once the race restarted as 12-lap sprint to the flag, Sutton continued his forward momentum, putting cars in between himself and title rivals Colin Turkington and Dan Cammish to steal second on the final lap from Turkington’s team-mate Tom Oliphant around the outside of Copse before completing the move into Maggots and Becketts.
Speaking to ITV post-race, the 2017 champion said the car was back to how it had felt at Donington Park as he was running without success ballast aboard the car for the first time since the season-opener.
“I’ve now realised where our pace at Donington [Park] went, and it’s the weight in the car. Since then we’ve had weight in the car and you’ve taken it out and we’re back to where we were at Donington,” explained Sutton.
“The thing is absolutely phenomenal, I can’t get over it.”
Questioned whether he thought about settling for third to ensure a solid points haul for the championship, Sutton admitted he wanted to make the most of his ballast-free Infiniti, with his second position result regaining him the lead of the standings now six points ahead of Turkington.
“When you’ve got a car underneath you that good, and I could see Tom was struggling a bit with Ollie – and there was a bit of elbows going on there – and I thought I’d just try and take advantage of that,” he said.
“It kind of fell in my hands, obviously Tom gave me a load of racing room through turn one and I respect that, he didn’t run me wide or anything like that.
“He gave it his best shot with Ollie, and unfortunately there wasn’t enough laps for me to have a go [at Jackson].