BTCC Brands Hatch: Sutton beats Ingram in tense strategic Race 2 battle

Sutton’s win was built upon a blistering first lap, in which he deprived first-race winner and poleman Colin Turkington of the lead at the Druids hairpin.

Tom Ingram was also on the move, and steamed up the inside of Jake Hill for third at Druids before slicing inside Turkington into Surtees to grab second place.

Sutton’s Motorbase Performance Ford Focus ST instantly stamped in fastest lap on the second tour to extend the gap to 1.232 seconds, but then the Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N of reigning champion Ingram began to close the gap.

By half-distance, they were almost together, and as the race neared its final quarter Ingram made use of his extra hybrid allowance, but could never get the interval below 0.3s.

With five laps remaining the leading pair both had five laps of hybrid, and Sutton eased the gap out to win by 0.933s.

“We were just tyre-managing,” said Sutton. “I got the move on Colin done straight away.

“I knew Tom was hungry, but I managed it and we played the hybrid game until we had a level playing field, and then I cracked on at the end.”

Ingram professed that “I almost gave when I got to the five-lap mark because I knew the hybrid was the only way I was keeping up”.

Tom Ingram, Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 Hyundai i30 N Fastback

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

With all of the top 11 on the grid opting for the regular medium Goodyear tyre in this race, Turkington found his West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport less effective a weapon than on the softer rubber earlier on, but picked up his second podium of the day with a solid third.

Championship leader Dan Cammish held fourth in his Motorbase Ford from the WSR BMW of Jake Hill, before on the 15th lap Hill made it through on the inside at the Druids hairpin.

Rory Butcher was a distant sixth in his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla, but had some epic warfare going on his mirrors.

Team-mate Ricky Collard shadowed the Scot for most of the race, but came under pressure on the final lap from the Motorbase Ford of Sam Osborne, who was on the soft option tyre.

Contact was made at Clearways, sending Collard wide and allowing Josh Cook to grab seventh spot in his One Motorsport Honda Civic Type R from Osborne, George Gamble (Speedworks Toyota) and Collard.

But Osborne was penalised for the manoeuvre, demoting him to 10^th behind eighth-placed Gamble and Collard in ninth.

BTCC Brands Hatch Race 2 results

Cla	Driver	Gap	Interval
1	Ashley Sutton
2	Tom Ingram	0.933	0.933
3	Colin Turkington	3.405	2.472
4	Jake Hill	6.859	3.454
5	Dan Cammish	10.598	3.739
6	Rory Butcher	12.383	1.785
7	Josh Cook	13.912	1.529
8	Sam Osborne	14.168	0.256
9	George Gamble	14.238	0.070
10	Ricky Collard	14.350	0.112
11	Bobby Thompson	15.087	0.737
12	Tom Chilton	16.152	1.065
13	Ronan Pearson	16.659	0.507
14	Daniel Lloyd	22.151	5.492
15	Daniel Rowbottom	22.994	0.843
16	Adam Morgan	23.277	0.283
17	Dexter Patterson	27.380	4.103
18	Mikey Doble	28.468	1.088
19	Aiden Moffat	30.295	1.827
20	Will Powell	30.675	0.380
21	Andrew Watson	34.698	4.023
22	Jade Edwards	36.648	1.950
23	Nick Halstead	50.101	13.453
24	Jack Butel
25	Nicolas Hamilton
	Aron Taylor-Smith
	Stephen Jelley
View full results