'Emotional' Sutton says 2020 title 'leaps and bounds better' than first

Newly crowned two-time British Touring Car champion Ash Sutton says this year's title 'feels leaps and bounds better than the first' after beating Colin Turkington to the 2020 crown at Brands Hatch.

Sutton came into the final race weekend of 2020 nine-points behind Team BMW's Turkington in the title race, but the Laser Tools Racing driver ended up 14-points ahead of his rival by the end of the three races to add to his 2017 championship win.

Having finished second in race one before taking a crucially emphatic victory in race two, Sutton once again outscored Turkington with a sixth place finish during a treacherously wet third and final race.

Sutton admitted he had to keep his racing instinct in check during the final race, as he sat back and stalked his main rival Turkington for a sizeable chunk of the race.

"I’m standing here getting all emotional," Sutton told Crash.net. "It’s absolutely crazy. To think I ruined my own race in race two at Silverstone and clawed it back in race three. Went to Croft and ruined my own race again in race two!

"Finally it all clicked this weekend. There was a little side of me that maybe just sat there and there was a devil on the other side.

"One is telling me to go for the gap and other is telling me to calm down. We’ve found that balance!"

After winning his maiden BTCC crown in factory Subaru colours back in 2017, Sutton says the backstory of coming into this season with a new car and new team, as an Independent entry with Laser Tools Racing, means this year's title means more than the first.

Sutton took the title with five victories behind the wheel of the redeveloped Infiniti Q50, the same tally as Turkington in the BMW 330i M Sport machine.

"They say they get easier, but they definitely don’t! The second one means that little bit more. We’re in an Independent team going against the big manufacturers’," the Infiniti driver continued.

"It’s a new car, first season and a merge between the two teams. It’s not been the easiest of starts. Especially with what’s going on around the world. But we’ve for sure made the most of it.

"It’s not quite sunk in yet. It was a new car out of the blocks. The merge of two teams so it was never going to be a straight forward year. We were up against some big manufacturers. So for Laser Tools to take that on is mega and for me to do that for them is mega.

"Its leaps and bounds better than the first so I wonder what the third one is going to be like!"