Sutton had what the stats books will tell you was a record-equalling season in the British Touring Car Championship. But what was more important to him was the manner of his fourth crown, and the fact that he became the first to win it in both front and rear-wheel-drive machinery.
PLUS: How a BTCC Alliance swept the field away in 2023
His quartet of titles emulates Andy Rouse and Colin Turkington; his 12 wins from 30 races matches Alain Menu’s 12 from 24 in 1997. But the Swiss did that in an era of no success penalties, no reversed grids, no performance-balancing, no artificiality. No wonder Menu reckons Sutton would have made the grade as a top-line Super Touring star.
Ash Sutton makes no bones that key to his success is his relationship with his engineer, Antonio Carrozza. When they arrived from Team BMR/Laser Tools at Motorbase Performance in 2022 to start work with the Ford Focus ST, Sutton hadn’t raced a front-wheel-drive NGTC car since his rookie BTCC season in 2016; Carrozza had never engineered a FWD machine – at all.
On top of that, the focus (ahem) was on implementing hybrid and all the changes that entailed. By October 2023, Sutton was a champion (again) with the renamed Alliance Racing.
Source: Autosport