Sutton was supreme throughout the half-hour in his Alliance Racing (nee Motorbase) Ford Focus ST as he bids for a fourth title.
He sat at the top of the times when the red flags flew after nine minutes, due to barrier damage on the straight after Sheene Curve inflicted when George Gamble dropped a wheel of his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla onto the grass and cannoned off in a rearward impact.
At this point Sutton was 0.051 seconds clear of Rory Butcher (Speedworks Toyota), with Ingram third in his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N.
Bizarrely, none of the leading positions changed once the session resumed for the remaining 20 minutes, but that doesn’t mean Sutton didn’t go quicker.
First he chipped 0.030s away from his previous best, and then he lopped the best part of 0.2s away from that to end up 0.253s to the good.
That was despite Sutton, who extends his championship lead over Ingram to 46 points, running the minimum one second of hybrid boost on the Ford, deployed at 135km/h.
“Well that’s one point extra,” said Sutton. “I had a scary old lap there. We had three laps good enough for pole, but I knew I had a couple of tenths on the table.
“On my best lap I had a big moment at Hawthorn – I was all over the grass and still managed to go quicker.
“I knew there was a bit more and I wanted it, despite whether we needed it or not.”
Source: Autosport