Points deficit ‘still quite a margin’ – Sutton

Reigning British Touring Car champion Ashley Sutton admits the gap from himself to the current points leader Colin Turkington ‘is still quite a margin’, despite closing in on the title fight at Rockingham.

The Subaru Levorg driver heads into the business end of the 2018 season 32-points behind Team BMW’s Turkington.

Sutton had closed to within 17-points of the championship summit following his fourth win of the year in race two at Rockingham.

However, Sutton lost vital ground during the final reverse grid after the BMR driver found himself caught out in the opening lap melee, and dropped down to 17th as a result.

“We could’ve done without that in the last race,” Sutton told Crash.net. “But it is what it is. We had a solid 1 and 2. We come away third in the championship. It all sounds well but the points deficit is still quite a margin.

“At the minute, you’ve got Tom and Colin in their own little league. We’ve got to somehow close that down.

“It was a combination of a little bit of contact on the way in and the rears locked up. As you saw on TV, a handful of us all missed the corner. The weather caught us out. There was contact on the way in.

“You can’t do anything about those situations, it’s all part and parcel of it.”

Having been out-qualified by his team mate Jason Plato on Saturday, Sutton paid testament to a number of changes, which ‘brought the car alive’ come race day.

“Overnight the boys done some big changes. They brought he car alive. It’s a bit of a shame we couldn’t find that in qualifying but we’ve come away with the results we needed despite qualifying.”