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Marcus Simmons

BTCC Oulton Park: Supreme Sutton beats Hill to pole

The three-time champion sailed easily through to the top 10 shootout by topping the first qualifying session, and then stamped in two laps quicker than the best anyone else could manage in his Motorbase Performance-run Ford Focus ST.

Sutton’s third consecutive pole came by 0.225 seconds from the West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport of Jake Hill, and was achieved despite his being allowed the lowest amount of hybrid boost of one second per lap at a minimum speed of 135km/h.

“It’s mega,” said Sutton, who made it five out of five poles this season for the NAPA-liveried Motorbase squad.

“We’re in such a rhythm. We’ve made one change since we rolled it off the truck.

“We all love the soft tyre in general, but to qualify on it [the first time this has happened this season] is something else.”

Jake Hill, Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport BMW 330e M Sport (Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images)

Hill has been trying what he described as a “radical” set-up on the BMW at Oulton and it seemed to pay off as he slotted comfortably into second place, on seven seconds of hybrid at 130km/h.

Up to third position came a delighted Ricky Collard, going great guns in the lead Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport, and he will share the second-row with the Team Hard Cupra Leon of Bobby Thompson.

Both Collard and Thompson are outside the top seven in the championship so were on the maximum 15s/115km/h of hybrid.

Dan Cammish only just squeaked into Q2 by 0.014s, but he vaulted his Motorbase Ford up to fifth in the 10-minute shootout on 9s/130km/h of hybrid.

The other car on the third row will be the Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N of free practice topper Tom Ingram.

Reigning champion Ingram, who had 3s/135km/h of hybrid, sat out most of Q1 after setting a time easily quick enough to progress before a red flag on 10 minutes, but couldn’t get near that performance in Q2.

Colin Turkington had vaulted his WSR BMW up from ninth to seventh at the chequered flag on the final lap of Q2, with 5s of hybrid at a minimum 135km/h, but was disqualified from qualifying after the session due to his car failing scrutineering checks on his fuel.

Ricky Collard, Toyota GAZOO Racing UK Toyota Corolla GR Sport (Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images)

Josh Cook qualified his One Motorsport Honda Civic Type R in eighth, but moves up to seventh due to Turkington's omission.

Rounding out the Q2 field were Aron Taylor-Smith (Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra) and Rory Butcher (Speedworks Toyota).

A number of lap times were disallowed in Q1 for track-limits breaches, and this eliminated the Motorbase Ford of Dan Rowbottom from the shootout.

The red flag was caused when Will Powell spun his Honda into the gravel at Druids.

BTCC Oulton Park - Qualifying result

Q2

Cla Driver Time Gap km/h Points
1 United Kingdom Ashley Sutton 1'24.832   94.464  
2 United Kingdom Jake Hill 1'25.057 0.225 94.214  
3 United Kingdom Ricky Collard 1'25.300 0.468 93.946  
4 Bobby Thompson 1'25.366 0.534 93.873  
5 United Kingdom Dan Cammish 1'25.443 0.611 93.789  
6 United Kingdom Tom Ingram 1'25.465 0.633 93.765  
7 United Kingdom Josh Cook 1'25.487 0.655 93.741  
8 Ireland Aron Taylor-Smith 1'25.613 0.781 93.603  
9 United Kingdom Rory Butcher 1'25.864 1.032 93.329  
  United Kingdom Colin Turkington 1'25.475 0.643 93.754  

Q1

Cla Driver Time Gap
1 United Kingdom Ashley Sutton 1'24.913  
2 United Kingdom Tom Ingram 1'25.234 0.321
3 United Kingdom Jake Hill 1'25.236 0.323
4 United Kingdom Ricky Collard 1'25.377 0.464
5 United Kingdom Colin Turkington 1'25.412 0.499
6 United Kingdom Josh Cook 1'25.498 0.585
7 Bobby Thompson 1'25.542 0.629
8 United Kingdom Rory Butcher 1'25.552 0.639
9 Ireland Aron Taylor-Smith 1'25.563 0.650
10 United Kingdom Dan Cammish 1'25.574 0.661
11 United Kingdom Adam Morgan 1'25.588 0.675
12 United Kingdom Daniel Rowbottom 1'25.593 0.680
13 United Kingdom Stephen Jelley 1'25.650 0.737
14 United Kingdom Aiden Moffat 1'25.658 0.745
15 George Gamble 1'25.666 0.753
16 United Kingdom Daniel Lloyd 1'25.743 0.830
17 Mikey Doble 1'25.825 0.912
18 United Kingdom Andrew Watson 1'25.856 0.943
19 United Kingdom Sam Osborne 1'25.862 0.949
20 Ronan Pearson 1'25.898 0.985
21 Dexter Patterson 1'25.919 1.006
22 United Kingdom Tom Chilton 1'26.068 1.155
23 Jade Edwards 1'26.396 1.483
24 Jack Butel 1'26.544 1.631
25 Nicolas Hamilton 1'26.885 1.972
26 Nick Halstead 1'27.244 2.331
27 Will Powell 1'31.552 6.639
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