Josh Cook, Ash Sutton and Mikey Doble win big at Croft
The Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship is set for a grandstand finish after Ash Sutton moved a step closer to clinching a record-breaking fifth Drivers’ Championship title at Croft this past weekend (September 5-6).
On what proved to be an action-packed trip to the North East of England, race wins fell the way of Josh Cook, Mikey Doble and Sutton, who was able to maintain his healthy points advantage at the summit of the standings.
In front of a capacity crowd at the British Automobile Racing Club operated venue, the UK’s premier motorsport series delivered a plethora of full-throttle thrills - and it all started on Saturday with the eagerly-anticipated Race To Pole.
Having produced a last-gasp lap to top the earlier qualifying segment, Speedworks Corolla Racing’s Cook proved to be the driver to beat during the 11-lap contest as he stormed to victory to secure his second pole position of the season.
The Toyota Corolla driver had to be at his brilliant best out front however as he was put under constant pressure by the NAPA Racing UK duo of Dan Cammish and Sutton, who finished second and third respectively.
Image by Jamie Peters-Ennis
Cook would go on to convert pole position into a second win of the season in a rain-affected opening encounter on Sunday, however that didn’t tell the whole story of what was a captivating contest.
With a portion of the field opting to make a strategic pit stop at the end of the formation lap and switch from the hard to the wet tyre, the battle for the win boiled down to Cook, Cammish, Sutton and reigning champion Tom Ingram at the front of the field.
Cook controlled proceedings for much of the race but when Ingram quickly dispatched both NAPA Racing UK machines, the race for the win was on. Significantly though, both Ingram and Cammish were hit with five-second time penalties for exceeding track limits.
Hitting the front with two laps to go, Ingram pulled out all the stops to build up a gap of more than five seconds but he was unable to do so. That meant that despite crossing the line in second ahead of Sutton, Cook claimed victory while Ingram dropped to third.
Sutton then edged closer to championship superstardom as he chalked up a 55th career triumph in race two. Despite having to contend with the slower hard tyre, nobody could stop Sutton from storming to an eighth win of the year.
Making a sensational move around the outside of Cook at Tower Bend on lap one, the front-wheel-drive ace quickly pulled clear to reign supreme ahead of Dan Rowbottom and Ricky Collard in comfortable fashion.
Power Maxed Racing’s Doble then closed out the weekend in style as he claimed his second win of the campaign ahead of Team Vertu’s Tom Chilton and three-time title winner Gordon Shedden.
Having reverse engineered his race day, the Audi A3 Saloon driver started race three from pole position and despite having to deal with a lengthy safety car period early on, he never looked like losing what ultimately became a third career win in the BTCC.
Leaving Croft, Sutton now holds a 115-point advantage over Cammish in the Drivers’ Championship and providing things go his way at the next round, he will provisionally be crowned the first five-time champion in BTCC history.
Image by Jamie Peters-Ennis
To view the full classification of results from all BTCC sessions at Croft, CLICK HERE.
The penultimate round of the 2026 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship season takes place at the Home of British Motor Racing, Silverstone, on September 26-27.