With NAPA celebrating its 100-year anniversary, the team headed into the weekend topping the driver’s standings with Ash Sutton after his double victory in the Donington Park season opener. To commemorate NAPA’s 100-years, Sutton’s team ran a black and yellow livery of the original NAPA colours.
After two busy practice sessions on Saturday morning, the NAPA Racing UK quartet headed into qualifying in a confident mood, but it would be a tough session for championship leader Sutton, who failed to make it through from his Group 1 of Part 1 by just 0.054s.
Dan Rowbottom missed out by an even smaller margin in the Group 2 – 0.012s – to leave the pair 13th and 14th on the grid for the opening race.
Part 2 saw Sam Osborne knocked out as he ended up seventh on the grid, which marked a new personal best qualifying performance, with Dan Cammish flying the flag into the Quick Six before securing fifth on the grid.
Running the soft compound tyre in the opening race, Cammish saw off the early challenge of Mikey Doble to kick off the weekend with a sold fifth-place finish, whilst Osborne ran strongly in the top ten throughout, although he would be shuffled back to eighth late on in a frenetic midfield battle.
Given their positions outside the top ten, both Sutton and Rowbottom elected to run the less favoured hard tyre at the first opportunity, with Sutton battling his way to tenth at the finish and Rowbottom taking 18th, having lost out to softer-shod cars behind.
With the top three forced onto the hard tyre for race two, Cammish was well placed to fight forwards from the third row and wasted little time in making up progress as he climbed to second in the early laps.
After coming to a halt ahead of the restart after an early safety car period, Cammish was then hit from behind, damaging the suspension and putting him into retirement.
It was then Sutton who lead the NAPA Racing UK challenge as he made the most of the soft tyre and was able to romp his way through to third spot and grab a podium finish – ensuring silverware on a weekend when he was running a special livery on his car to celebrate NAPA’s 100th birthday. The result also saw the 44-time winner reach a landmark 100th podium in the BTCC.
Osborne ran strongly to cross the line in eleventh spot before dropping down to 17th as a result of a five-second penalty for a false start, with Rowbottom showing his pace on the soft tyre as he worked his way through into ninth.
Drawn on pole for race three, Rowbottom did well to fend off two fast-starting BMWs at the start and held the lead through the first lap before a move from Charles Rainford on lap two demoted him down to second.
Rowbottom would slip down the order as the race progressed to end the race in ninth, with Sutton instead topping the NAPA Racing UK challenge once again as he battled his way to fourth spot thanks to a late move on the Restart Racing Hyundai i30 N of Chris Smiley.
Both Osborne and Cammish were left to run the hard tyre in the final race, which hampered their chances of making up ground from their respective starting positions. Despite that, Cammish rose through the pack from 23rd place to finish 14th as the third best driver on hard rubber, with Osborne missing out on points in 18th.
Sutton retains the points lead ahead of the next event at Snetterton, with Rowbottom and Cammish in sixth and seventh, and Osborne in 18th.
NAPA Racing UK sits second in the Teams’ Championship, with the series rolling into Snetterton on the 24/25 May for the third action-packed event of the 2025 campaign.
