There’s no question about it: Ash Sutton is one of the all-time greats of the British Touring Car Championship. It’s well-documented already that his 2023 title success aboard his Alliance Racing Ford Focus ST was a record-equalling fourth alongside Andy Rouse and Colin Turkington, and meant that he became the first in BTCC history to win it in rear and front-wheel-drive machinery; the same goes for his matching of Alain Menu’s 1997 record of 12 race wins in a season.
Sutton’s career has been covered extensively; so too have the achievements of the NAPA-liveried Motorbase/Alliance squad in our in-depth feature of last November. And everyone has an opinion about him. So now, as he gets set to be one of the star guests at this week’s Autosport International show at the Birmingham NEC, it’s time to ask Sutton: what does he think of the main rivals he’s faced in the BTCC?
Tom Ingram
There seems to be a lot of respect between 2022 champion Ingram and Sutton: “Yeah there is. Initially when I first got into touring cars we had a few little run-ins together. I think everyone does – it’s touring car racing. We’d give each other the nudge that was always a little bit too much. But I think from 2019 onwards the atmosphere in touring cars maybe slightly changed – a bit of racing room was left a bit more, and more racing respect was there.
“Definitely with Tom I’ve noticed, especially the past two seasons when we’ve both been gunning for the title, that we’ve always given each other that bit of respect. We still get stuck in, we still give each other the nudge here and there, but there’s never this taking-each-other-out stuff. If you give him a little nudge you know you’re going to get it back at some point. That for us is respect at a touring car level.”
Has that been helped by the BTCC drivers’ group, of which Sutton is a prime mover? “When Dan Rowbottom was with Honda we started this group. We’re now in the same team, so we have Adam Morgan who gets involved a little bit to speak on behalf of the rear-wheel-drive side. Ultimately the whole idea of that group was to overcome issues and conflict within the drivers – we can all align and get things we all want out of the championship, and we’ve managed to do that. We’ve tweaked a few rules, which favours the racing and means that we know we’re going to get left a little bit of racing room rather than doors being shut on us. But ultimately the racing respect between me and Tom has always been there since late 2019.”
When Sutton was in the rear-wheel-drive Subaru and Infiniti, did he ever look at Ingram’s unusual driving style and wonder how he was doing what he was doing in a front-drive car? “There were a couple of times where you’d watch an onboard and you’d think, ‘Bloody hell, the thing moves around a lot.’ I always thought, ‘Is that the fastest way round? Is it what I would want from a front-wheel-drive car?’ And ultimately last year I wasn’t too far away.
“Maybe not quite as lairy, but definitely a car that moved around a lot. It’s just the nature of driving style. That’s Tom’s driving style and I’ve found that as well in a front-wheel-drive car, but you’d never in your life want a rear-wheel-drive car doing that.”
Jake Hill
Hill appears to be a fiery little character on the track: “He’s filled Rob Collard’s shoes maybe! To be fair, Jake’s a hard racer, and he’s very passionate about it, and you can see that sometimes when things flare up. But we all have our moments when things get a bit heated. Jake on track is very aggressive, but there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you know how to handle that person, and I’ve been told I can come across quite aggressive. It’s just the nature of the beast I think.
“When you’re in a rear-wheel-drive car and you know that it’s going to come on strong at the end of a race, that tends to be when you see Jake quite punchy, when he knows that he’s got an advantage in the car and he’s trying to make the most of it.”
What about Oulton Park last summer, when Hill was desperate to hold on from Sutton early on? “Those two races, Jake knew he had to keep me behind at the very start, because that’s when a rear-wheel-drive car’s at its weakest, and I knew full well if I did get in front of him it was going to become hard at the end for me. When we saw Jake jump in a rear-wheel-drive car [for 2022], no one actually knew what he was going to be like, but now we’ve got an understanding of that we can maximise our own performance from it.”
Colin Turkington
He’s now the elder statesman of the leading runners, and still a force: “Colin is always thinking of points, but don’t get me wrong – he’s almost like the silent assassin! We’ve seen it when he’s had to come from the back of the grid to the front, like at Oulton Park [in 2023] – he does get stuck in. As much as everyone calls him Mr Consistent, Mr Pointsy, when he’s at the back and he’s got to make his way to the front the elbows are out. But 90% of his driving style is done on a calculation basis for the championship – that’s how I always look at Colin.”
It's easy to paint a driver’s racing character from what they’re like out of the car. Turkington is a calm, charming chap – so it takes you aback when he’s a bit cheeky on the track: “100%! I’ve had the little nudge that opens the door. As drivers we’ve all got two different personalities. We walk around the paddock and some of us act as nice guy and approachable, some want to keep themselves to themselves, but when we get in a race car we do all change, and anyone that tells me they don’t is wrong.
“Colin is an absolutely fantastic, down-to-earth guy out of the car, but when he’s got the car under him and gives you a little nudge to open the door, that’s when he’s digging deep.”
Josh Cook
He was Sutton’s first BTCC team-mate, back in the Triple Eight MG days in 2016, and they’ve been friends ever since: “Josh is fantastic. Weirdly, before I even got into touring cars, I genuinely thought Josh didn’t like me. And we’ve both laughed and joked about this because he thought the same thing about me. This was when we were in the support paddock. He was still involved in Clios as a team owner when I was racing them [Sutton won the 2015 title] – I might have had a couple of run-ins with his drivers.
“But the moment I joined British touring cars in 2016, we got on like a house on fire and we still do. We maybe don’t see each other as much or speak as much we used to – our lives take over [both have recently become fathers] and we’re doing our own programmes within touring cars – but he’s just a fantastic guy and we’ve had some awesome battles on track. You look back at the last race of the year in 2019, when we were just absolutely on it, side by side, for multiple laps. That for me is when you’ve got someone that’s a good friend off track that you can have a good hard race with on track.
“Despite being friends, you’re still going to have these blows. Look at Knockhill last year when Josh ended up in the barrier – I went round the outside of him and he bounced off the side of my car and it ended his race. Was that my intention? No. That for me was just a racing incident, and even if we were best friends we wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it. Despite your relationship with that individual, you can’t always overcome every issue.”
Dan Cammish
Sutton’s current team-mate – and sometime rear-gunner – can also be blisteringly fast in his own right: “Dan’s fantastic. Back in 2021, Pete Osborne [Alliance boss] approached me to join what is now the NAPA outfit, and at the time I thought I had a done deal elsewhere. Pete asked me who would I put in the car, and I said, ‘Well, there’s one guy who’s not on this grid that deserves a shot because of his raw pace’, and that was Dan Cammish. He’d lost his seat from Honda, he’d had a year out, he was itching to get back in and I tried to put his name forward to get in the seat, which realistically it paid off for him.
“I never really spoke to him up to that point – he keeps himself to himself. But you look at his CV and what he’s achieved in a race car, and that speaks for itself. The career he had in Porsches, in Formula Ford, they were dominant eras for him. And he just missed out on the BTCC championship in 2019. My respect for Dan is huge and I put his name forward to take that seat, and it turned out that we ended up being team-mates anyway!”
How much has he contributed to the team’s success? “Look back to 2022, what he gave up for me that year because we had a small chance of winning it, the race win he sacrificed at Thruxton in race two, and acting a little bit as a wingman and towing me round at Silverstone. We have a right laugh within the team, and away from the track he’s just a down-to-earth, genuine guy.”
Jason Plato
Now we’re going to talk about some of the BTCC champions who haven’t been on the grid lately, starting with Sutton’s childhood hero: “The first time I met him, and we still send the picture between us every now and again, was the Autosport Awards after the 2007 season. I was there to collect an award for my karting career.
“Despite Lewis Hamilton and David Coulthard and a few others being there, the one I wanted to go and see was Jason. He’s the one who I’d been watching on telly, and I wanted to be in his seat doing what he was doing. I was a young 13-year-old looking at my idol, and God knows how many years later I’m sat in a race car next to him. It was quite surreal to be fair, firstly to be joining BMR [for 2017], but to do it alongside Jason was special. Jason played a few parts in my way of thinking in touring cars for sure. He’s been one of the most successful out there to date, he’s made a living from British touring cars for a very very long time.
“At Brands Hatch, just before the final race in 2017, I was going for the title. He pulled me aside, he grabbed the front of my helmet, he looked me in the eye, and he said, ‘Don’t worry kid, you’ve got this.’ It was just one of those… ‘this is your time’ moments. He’s full of laughs, full of stories. You get him down the local pub, nice bit of food, and he’s a proper story-teller. He’s a fantastic guy, and to have two hours to listen to half of what he’s been up to is brilliant.
“I’ve been on the wrong side of Jason – in 2019, me and him came to blows at Snetterton, and that was the first time that someone I had respected for so long and thought that we were on a common ground… I got knocked down a peg or two! It made me open my eyes to never trust anyone in British touring cars. It was a learning curve and definitely a heated one.
“But last year I had some fantastic texts from Jason. When we won the title at Brands, after the first race, he was the first person to call me. And he spent 10 minutes on the phone, chatting away, talking about some of the memories, congratulating me, and I even heard him crack open a little drink for me. It was nice – we’ve been through some highs and lows, but to have someone who I had as an idol saying you’re doing the best job anyone can do, that you’re a bit special, is really nice.”
Matt Neal
His title-winning days were over when Sutton rocked up in the BTCC, but he could still be a force: “In my first year in the championship I had a big coming-together with him at Brands. It was the accident coming out of Druids where he hit the wall on the left – he spun round and round and he even picked up a bit of concussion. That was our first real blow on the track, and I can remember going to see him afterwards and talking about it and it was very heated, very Matt Neal-esque if I can call it that! I definitely was on the receiving end of that… But I was the new kid on the block at that time, and ultimately these names were just stickers on the window to me. I was there to do my own job.
“I always found he kept himself to himself. You’d walk down the pitlane and stop and say hello and stuff, but that was always about it. And then at the start of 2018, all of us went to the Autosport show, and did a bit on stage, and I started calling him ‘the giraffe’ and ‘the old boy’ and things like that, and we started having a bit of a laugh on stage, and that was the first time I felt part of the inner circle.
“I think Ingram’s spoken of this inner circle, where when you’ve gone and got yourself a championship, and you’ve proven your worth, it’s almost like you’ve been let in. There was me, Andrew Jordan, Gordon Shedden and Colin, five of us, and I felt a part of that then rather than the new kid on the block. He’s a genuinely nice guy, a good old character.”
Gordon Shedden
The Scot was very much the BTCC top dog when Sutton arrived, but more part of the Plato/Neal generation: “Yeah he is. I actually got on very well with Gordon on track. A lot of people struggled with having a bit of contact with him, but like with Tom Ingram we’ve had this mutual respect. A couple of times I’ve been on the receiving end of a nudge and thought, ‘Oh Gordon, that was a bit hard.’
“But there were a couple of times where we’ve both just worked together, and he would make a gap and I’d follow him through, or vice versa. I really enjoyed those races with him, and we’ve both got out of the car multiple times and said, ‘Ah that was a cracking race.’ Once I got into that inner circle, your respect for each other does change massively.
“I spoke to him at the BRDC Awards last month and he was saying he’d love to get back into the BTCC, and then he’s on the phone asking if I can help him with a sim [Sutton’s business away from the track is simulators]. And he sent me down a book on 50 years of Knockhill for Christmas as a little thank you gift. A great guy and a true racer – a hard racer, that’s for sure.”
Andrew Jordan
If only Jordan had stayed in the BTCC after the COVID hiatus, he might have enjoyed some epic scraps with Sutton. But he’s preferred to concentrate on the family business in historic racing: “Like Gordon, we never really had big blows with each other on track, and there were definitely a few occasions where we worked together but without any communication beforehand. When you fall into that with someone I always feel that’s when you know you’ve got the mutual respect there. In my eyes, there’s working together on track and making progress, or there’s causing carnage.
“Andrew’s fast in the car, and a fantastic guy away from the track – a family man and a true hard worker. You look at what their business is now, and he’s doing a fantastic job there. The whole Jordan family are great – I must fit into their good books for them to invite me along in 2018 to race one of their Cortinas with one of Andrew’s sponsors, Pete Chambers, at Goodwood. I feel like I got their approval, and that was quite a cool moment. I speak to Andrew quite a bit actually, and always ask him how he’s getting on with his team and the progress they’re making.”
And… Alain Menu
We’re going to give Sutton the final choice, to complete 10 drivers. And he picks a champion he never raced against: “There is one character: Alain Menu. Unfortunately I probably will never race him. He left touring cars as I joined. He almost acted as a bit of a mentor in my first year of touring cars, just looking over data. He was also working with Josh Cook and Warren Scott, so he was kind of part of what we would call the BMR family. I built a relationship with him off the back of that and took some of his advice in terms of the dos and don’ts of touring car racing.
“In 2017 Alain asked me to go up to his house when we were at Knockhill. We stayed there for the weekend, we had some fantastic food, spent time with his family and mine. From that point onwards I’ve always had a great relationship with him where we drop each other a text, just a little catch-up with each other, checking in how everyone’s doing.
“The perfect example for me is I hadn’t seen him for a couple of years, and at the Brands Hatch Super Touring Power event [last summer] he found out I was there, and he came out of his box where he had a few guests and came and found me. We had a good half-hour of taking the mickey out of each other and catching up. He played a part in it [Sutton’s success], and I class him as a friend.”
