Ash Sutton: ‘New qualifying format threw a cat amongst the pigeons’

Ash Sutton enjoyed the new qualifying format used in the British Touring Car Championship for the first time at Donington Park, saying it ‘threw a cat amongst the pigeons’.

The multi-part qualifying format mixed up the order of the timed session, and the weather added an additional element of uncertainty into the mix.

Sutton had trailed rival Tom Ingram by over half a second in both of the day’s earlier practice sessions,  and when the two both shared qualifying track time for the first time in Q2, it was actually Sutton who emerged just under a tenth of a second quicker.

However, in the final Q3 ‘quick six’ session, Sutton didn’t improve by as much of a margin as his rival, and had to settle for a front row grid position alongside Ingram for Sunday’s opening race.

Nonetheless, the four-time champion said he really enjoyed the new format, which forced him and his engineer Antonio Carrozza into making quick decisions due to the changing conditions.

“I loved it, it was awesome,” said Sutton to TouringCars.Net. “It threw a cat amongst the pigeons, essentially. It was chaos in that respect.

“The weather played a big part of it as well, especially in Q1. The pressure that is applied for a driver is huge, and the same for the team, to give the drivers the car they need to deliver.

“Watching them [team-mates Daniel Rowbottom and Can Cammish] get caught out in Q1 added an element of pressure, especially when Cammish got caught out. That just comes down to tyre choices and weather conditions.

“It’s about that relationship between driver and engineer, but it’s also just pot luck. We made the wrong choice multiple times last year. But that’s what it’s all about.”

Sutton was unfazed about being beaten by Ingram, especially given that Sunday’s weather forecast is completely different to Saturday’s, with heavy rain forecast in the morning.

The NAPA Racing UK driver also pointed to strategy decisions relating to the changes to the hybrid deployment and tyre options for race two, which he expects to have a big effect in race two.

“Tom just pipped us to pole. We both left a little bit on the table. Could we both have gone faster? Yes. But tomorrow it’s going to be raining. It’s going to be a completely different ball game.

“We’ve got to watch out for the BMWs off the line, which is also a big factor. None of us have done a huge amount of wet running, so that’s going to be interesting.

“We’ve got to play it as it comes. It’s an unknown quantity, especially when you go into race two, that [hybrid] deployment delta is going to be quite big, so if we are on the wets and it is a wet race it’s going to be a bit more of a level playing field.

“But if it’s slicks, who knows, you could see a few cars drop back through the field [in race one] because of the deployment [delta], so it’s going to be interesting.”