Ash Sutton expecting hybrid system to make the grid closer

Ash Sutton is expecting the new British Touring Car Championship’s hybrid system to make the grid even closer, as drivers are able to work more on fine-tuning their setup with a consistent base weight over a weekend.

The NAPA Racing UK driver ended up as the fastest driver following second practice at Donington Park, in a lap which he says was not utilising the full 15 seconds of boost.

But not knowing how much boost his rivals had used on their laps in the session leaves the three-time champion in the dark about the true pace of his rivals – although he expects that the system will ultimately result in a more competitive field.

“I don’t think you can really read into any of it at the minute – you don’t know who’s using hybrid and things like that, so it’s an unknown quantity,” said Sutton to TouringCars.Net.

“We know where we are – we’re just playing with setup and stuff like that. Obviously, we’re running the same tyre through FP1 and FP2 so the tyre mileage was quite high for us, but overall it’s been good.

“Every track gives a different response in terms of when you deploy and the lap time gained is slightly different per track.

“Here, you’re looking at a couple of tenths. It’s nothing major, but it’s still an effect. Other people might say differently. For us we know where we’re going to use it on a lap, but we’re keeping our cards close to our chest.

“It leaves people in the unknown. We used it throughout the session, but particularly on the quick laps we sometimes do and sometimes don’t use it. It just depends on what plan we want to play in that session.”

Looking ahead to qualifying, Sutton was reasonably confident about challenging for pole, having also been third fastest in the earlier first practice session.

“We’ll give it our best shot. It’s so unknown – everyone has got to show their true colours come qualifying.

“Everyone is going to put their cards on the table and there’s no more hiding, so we’ll ultimately find out exactly what everyone’s been up to when we see them all revealed in qualifying.”

The 28-year-old did not hesitate when asked if he felt the hybrid system would result in greater competition this year.

“In terms of setting the car up, yes you can be more consistent, but I still think the hybrid is going to do its purpose in terms of putting you at a disadvantage or on the back foot coming into qualifying. With the lack of hybrid [for the championship leader at future meetings] I think it’s going to have an effect.

“We can just roll out a similar car most weekends, but in terms of the hybrid deployment, that will have an effect. But no one actually knows that until we go to round two.

“In my opinion it will make the grid much, much closer, because we’ve all got more time to really dial in that one essential setup; we’re not chasing ballast changes and things like that.

“We’re all sat at a static weight, in terms of the standard base weight, so you can hone the car in a lot more and fine tune it a lot more. I think it will make it closer.”