Sutton had to battle from an early fifth place but picked off his rivals in his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST on the way to his 40th career BTCC victory.
Adam Morgan started on pole alongside Colin Turkington in an all-West Surrey Racing BMW front row but Josh Cook, from third on the grid, pulled off a great manoeuvre on Turkington into the Complex to put his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla into second.
That bunched up the pack, and contact from Turkington fired Dan Rowbottom into the barrier, although the Midlander recovered and rejoined the race.
Sutton was down in fifth, but on the second lap, he used hybrid to get himself past both Turkington and the sister Ford of Dan Cammish into third place – and set the fastest lap and gain an extra point.
Up front, Cook was applying serious pressure to race leader Morgan, and after six laps Morgan, Cook, Sutton, Cammish and Turkington were all in a train.
Next time around, Sutton somehow chiselled a gap on Cook at Goodwood, and the Toyota became easy meat, dropping to the back of the leading group.
On the ninth lap of the intended 16, Sutton divebombed Morgan into Segrave, and the BMW’s lost momentum allowed Cammish to get around the outside at Noble into second place.
Then came a belated safety car – Tom Chilton’s broken-down Hyundai had been parked at the side of the track on the run to the Complex for some time before the race was neutralised.
Sutton and Cammish scampered away at the restart over six laps, and the former went on to take the win by 4.449 seconds.
Tom Ingram and Jake Hill came into the equation for third place after the safety car.
On the penultimate lap, Ingram’s Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N went around the outside of Morgan into the chicane, but there was contact.
Ingram had to steer out of the move and bypassed the chicane completely, while Morgan skipped the middle part – potentially removing the threat of any penalty being applied to Ingram like in race two.
Also in the mix was Jake Hill, who claimed fifth in his WSR BMW from the fading Cook and Turkington.
Aron Taylor-Smith, Rob Huff and Ronan Pearson completed the top 10.
27'20.097
+4.449
27'24.546
+7.962
27'28.059
+8.039
27'28.136
+8.198
27'28.295
+8.376
27'28.473
+9.646
27'29.743
+10.002
27'30.099
+10.275
27'30.372
+10.990
27'31.087
+11.315
27'31.412
+12.862
27'32.959
+13.843
27'33.940
+14.727
27'34.824
+15.186
27'35.283
+33.156
27'53.253
1 lap
1 lap
Source: Autosport