Ash Sutton left Silverstone’s round of the British Touring Car Championship with an increased margin at the top of the drivers’ standings, as the Laser Tools Racing driver added another podium finish to his season tally.
The Infiniti driver went into the meeting with a 29 point advantage, but left with a gap of 36 to his nearest rival, thanks to finishing seventh, fourth and third in Sunday’s three races respectively.
Having qualified in a creditable eighth with the full 75 kg of success ballast on board, Sutton then fought through each race to score consistent points.
“I question myself how I keep doing it,” said Sutton to TouringCars.Net. “We’re just working the numbers.
“Obviously, we’re trying to work out where we’re strong and where we’re weak, trying to counteract everything our rivals are pulling over us.
“The bit we like at the minute is they’re all squabbling amongst themselves a little bit for that second place as well.
“There is a five-way battle going on and I’m just trying to sit there in the background and keep chipping away at it.”
Alluding to the fact that he hasn’t appeared to challenge for wins in the past two events at Croft and Silverstone, Sutton states that he is very confident in the balance of his car at present.
“Obviously we did a lot of damage up to the second visit to Thruxton – we got a good points haul there which gave us that gap and since then we’ve knuckled down and maintained that, and obviously this weekend we’ve extended it.
“If you look back at Croft, there’s a four tenth delta there by carrying the 75 kg. Obviously here it was less.
“I’m not quite sure how we’re going to fit in at Donington. But I’m confident with the car at the minute – the car is in a very good place, and I feel like I am in terms of my mindset, so I’m just going to keep focussing on that.
“I’m happy, I’m just not going to count my chickens too soon. Obviously, 36 points is a lovely lead, but it can go so quickly.”
Sutton added that he was pleased to see team-mate Aiden Moffat mixing it up at the front of the field more in recent events.
“Aiden’s racing for himself and we’re both racing for that Teams’ championship, so when he’s there scoring points I can sort of semi-relax in terms of the Teams’ side of it.
“But when we’re looking at overall stuff, like you saw in race three, he did a mega job of just making my life a bit easier and he obviously let me through. It just meant then that I could just knuckle down and crack on and forget what was behind me.
“I want him to go and get some podiums and wins, that’s what it’s about and he deserves that. He didn’t quite make the podium today as he just suffered a couple of little things.
“In race three, when we were next each other on the grid, it meant that we could actually work together and make that drivers’ championship more stable.”