Sutton: ‘He just narrowed the gap down to less than a car width’ in collision with Ingram

Ash Sutton has had all the plaudits so far this season but has left the Oulton Park British Touring Car Championship round feeling like there is a “kick in the teeth”.

NAPA Racing’s Sutton had performed brilliantly in the opening two races to build up a strong gap in the championship, getting himself two second place finishes. After the collision with Ingram, he saw his championship advantage reduced back down to six points.

“Yeah, it’s frustrating that is,” Sutton told TouringCars.Net. “We spent the past four meetings, even including race one and two, just focused on stretching that out. I think we got it up to a 19 point lead and I was quite happy with that, willing to potentially lose a couple again to Tom in that race.

“It’s a kick in the teeth really to go off. All that hard work that we’ve been putting in has been undone and obviously the BMWs look like they’ve found something now.

“They’ve had a dominant weekend, no different to what we did at Thruxton. So it’s going to get interesting.”

The moment as always had two different points of view. Sutton was sure that his car was far enough alongside Ingram.

“Yeah, I got a really good start, got a good initial launch, started to have a bit of a run on Tom, got over to the level with his rear wheel. He just kept moving and moving and moving and unfortunately he just narrowed the gap down to less than the car width.

“When there’s an overlap, you can’t do too much. So it’s frustrating because me and Tom get on really, really well. We’re all out there to fend for ourselves, so it’s just one of those. We’ll see what happens.

“Obviously I didn’t want to go into the summer break with a DNF under my belt. Croft being six weeks away now, it’s frustrating. But the tyre test [is coming up], we’ve got a few bits to do as well.

“We’ve just got to come back fighting stronger.”