RACING LINES
Damien Smith
Ash Sutton found himself out in front for most of the BTCC’s opening weekend
The cream always rises to the top, as Tim Harvey told us for our British Touring Car Championship season preview (23 April), and so it proved across the opening weekend of the 2025 season at a sunny Donington Park. Ash Sutton and Tom Ingram were largely a class apart as they renewed their traditional rivalry at the sharp end of Britain’s premier motorsport series, with Sutton in his Alliance Racing Ford Focus ST scoring a brace of victories as he begins a fresh bid to become the first five-time BTCC champion.
SUTTON’S EARLY EDGE
The signs are that abandoning hybrid power and the cars shedding a massive 55kg in weight will give the BTCC a new lease of life, as intended, although it must be said that beyond Sutton taking the lead from team-mate Dan Cammish out of the first corner in the opener, there wasn’t a single pass for the lead in the three races at Donington. That was despite a new sporting regulation on tyre usage that has been designed to encourage more overtaking, especially in race two. Still, the action was as frenetic as ever and the intense duels between Sutton and Ingram bode well for another thrilling title battle. As 2022 champion Ingram put it, “it’s shaping up to be pretty spicy…”