The Latest Breaking News from Motorbase Performance

The 29-year-old, who has just become a father for the first time, switched to the Sunbury squad for 2022 and has finished as its top-placed driver in the championship in both his seasons there, accumulating a total of nine race wins plus a pair of third-place finishes in the points.…

The British Touring Car Championship season threatened to become a one-horse race at times in 2023, such was the searing speed of Ash Sutton and his Motorbase Performance-run Ford Focus ST.

But this time Sutton had to fend off a stern challenge from reigning champion Tom Ingram, who ran him extremely close but could not prevent the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus ST squad from extending its 2023 pole wipeout to eight from eight.

With the Berkshire-domiciled Yorkshireman’s Ford Focus ST already southbound on the M1 en route back to Motorbase Performance’s Kent premises after his hefty FP1 shunt, the second session began with angry black clouds looming beyond the Melbourne loop.

The 2019 series runner-up, who lies fifth in the 2023 standings, crashed his Motorbase Performance Ford Focus ST at McLeans in the closing stages of the first free practice session, moments after setting the quickest time to date.

Torrential rain soaked the teams on the grid, forcing everyone onto wet-weather tyres, and Sutton was the master of the conditions in his Motorbase Performance-run Ford Focus ST. 

The three-time champion wrung everything out of himself and his Motorbase Performance-run Ford Focus ST in the Q2 top-10 shootout to pip the One Motorsport Honda Civic Type R of Josh Cook by 0.006 seconds.

The three-time champion started his Motorbase Performance Ford Focus ST from second on the grid, but he was on the soft Goodyear tyre whereas pole-sitting team-mate Dan Cammish was on the medium compound. 

The local man got the jump at the lights, and headed team-mates Dan Rowbottom and Ash Sutton throughout for a Motorbase Performance Ford Focus ST 1-2-3.