Ash Sutton surged from 11th on the grid to win Round 5 of the 2021 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship, as the Laser Tools Racing star produced a stunning drive at Snetterton.
The reigning champion made pass after pass in his striking #1 Infiniti Q50 and his impressive performance was confirmed when a late overtake on race-long leader Colin Turkington clinched his second victory of the campaign.
Team BMW’s Turkington had to settle for second - following on from his earlier race one success - which still represented a good result in his ballast-laden 3 Series.
The final place on the podium went to MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square’s Ollie Jackson after he came out on top of a fantastic battle with the Ginsters-backed Hyundai of Tom Ingram.
Jackson looked to have lost out when Ingram nipped past late on, but the two-time race-winner would not be denied as he fought back to repass in the closing stages.
Rory Butcher backed up his earlier podium with a solid fifth-place finish in the second encounter, and was followed by a trio of BMWs in the shape of Tom Oliphant, Stephen Jelley and Adam Morgan.
The Team HARD CUPRA of Jack Goff was ninth with Laser Tools Racing’s Aiden Moffat completing the top ten order.
Ashley Sutton said: “I loved it! The car was absolutely phenomenal and I decided to put on a good little TV show for you guys at home.
“After such a bad qualifying yesterday, and we didn’t make as much progress in Race 1 as we wanted to, we had our work cut out, but the ultimate goal was to win Race 2 and we’ve achieved that, so now it’s damage limitation for Race 3.”
Colin Turkington said: “All credit to my team, I had a fantastic handling car and pace with the 75kg [of success ballast] so I was pushing hard to try and see if I could force a mistake at the end out of Ash. I thought maybe at one stage he missed the apex, but he was under control.
“You see another car coming rapidly and you get the feeling you’re a sitting duck, you just hope he doesn’t catch you quick enough, but the pace was too much. I had the thought to defend for my life but normally we’re halfway through the season in mid-June, but we’re only in the second event so I try not to take too much risk and take the podium when it’s there.
“We needed to bounce back after Thruxton, so getting on the podium was my aim and to do it twice so far so good, great job!”
Ollie Jackson said: “I think we made the right call running the medium tyre in the first race, it gave us a bit of an edge for the first half of this race.
“I got a really good launch off the line, the softs helped with that to be honest because they switch on so quick, and I just did the old wall of death around turn two and nobody pipped me off, so it was a winner.
“The soft was great for most of the race but the last few laps they were absolutely hanging and [Tom Ingram] was really pushing me hard. We had a nice little battle, nice fair racing and I really enjoyed it.”
2021 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship – Race 2 – Snetterton
1 Ashley SUTTON (GBR) Laser Tools Racing 12 Laps
2 Colin TURKINGTON (GBR) Team BMW +0.451s
3 Ollie JACKSON (GBR) MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square +8.603s
4 Tom INGRAM (GBR) Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com +8.769s
5 Rory BUTCHER (GBR) Toyota Gazoo Racing UK +10.524s
6 Tom OLIPHANT (GBR) Team BMW +10.859s
7 Stephen JELLEY (GBR) Team BMW +12.065s
8 Adam MORGAN (GBR) Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport +13.364s
9 Jack GOFF (GBR) Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct +13.662s
10 Aiden MOFFAT (GBR) Laser Tools Racing +16.204s
11 Gordon SHEDDEN (GBR) Halfords Racing with Cataclean +16.577s
12 Daniel LLOYD (GBR) Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing +16.925s
13 Chris SMILEY (GBR) Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com +17.228s
14 Josh COOK (GBR) BTC Racing +18.605s
15 Daniel ROWBOTTOM (GBR) Halfords Racing with Cataclean +21.190s
16 Senna PROCTOR (GBR) BTC Racing +22.295s
17 Carl BOARDLEY (GBR) Laser Tools Racing +22.534s
18 Árón TAYLOR-SMITH (IRL) Team HARD. with HUB Financial Solutions +26.536s
19 Sam OSBORNE (GBR) Racing with Wera & Photon Group +26.270s
20 Jason PLATO (GBR) Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing +39.770s
21 Jessica HAWKINS (GBR) Racing with Wera & Photon Group +42.017s
22 Jack BUTEL (GBR) EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com +42.534s
23 Jade EDWARDS (GBR) PHSC with BTC Racing +42.734s
24 Jake HILL (GBR) MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square +44.681s
25 Nicolas HAMILTON (GBR) ROKiT Racing with iQuoto Online Trading +47.417s
26 Sam SMELT (GBR) Toyota Gazoo Racing UK +48.429s
27 Rick PARFITT (GBR) EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com +56.091s
DNF Tom CHILTON (GBR) Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport
DNF Glynn GEDDIE (GBR) Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct
Penalties
Senna Proctor was penalised by the addition of five seconds to his race time for an incident involving Dan Rowbottom
Chris Smiley was penalised by the addition of one second to his race time for an incident involving Daniel Lloyd
Rick Parfitt received an official reprimand and had his licence endorsed by the addition of two penalty points for an incident involving Glynn Geddie
