Sutton quickest for Subaru at Thruxton test

Reigning British Touring Car champion Ashley Sutton has topped the timesheets during the annual TOCA test at Thruxton.

The Subaru Levorg driver was just one of the eight drivers to set a time beneath Honda's Matt Neal's pole position record from last season [1 minute 16.040s] as the teams racked up the mileage following last weekend's season opener.

Motorbase Performance's Tom Chilton was the first man to dip below Neal's record after setting a 1 minute 15.979s lap during the morning session, before Sutton lowered the benchmark yet further with a 1 minute 15.717s effort in the afternoon session.

Just 0.094s separated the top-three runners during the afternoon with Team HARD's Mike Bushell following up his strong showing from Brands Hatch with the second quickest time ahead of Neal, who recovered from an earlier throttle issue to set the third fastest time.

Such was the pace during the test, even pacesetter Sutton admitted he was caught by surprise.

“That was unexpected, I’ll be honest,” said Sutton. “It’s been a fast day in general and everyone’s been quick. We’ve come here looking for track time and I think we’ve found a few key things. It’s been a general test, not just a Thruxton test.

“We hadn’t done mileage prior to Season Launch at Donington Park, then Brands Hatch later that week but that was rained off. We’ve come to make up time on the others and we’ve achieved some key things and we hope some of those will carry over to Donington.”

Current BTCC points leader Tom Ingram was among the seven drivers absent from the Thruxton test.