Ashley Sutton's 2026 records

[u/Brief-Poetry6434]

I would like to highlight the records Ashley Sutton set in this year's British Touring Car Championship:

5 Titles

516 points (468 if qualifying races are excluded)

21 podiums (25 if qualifying races are included)

13 Fastest Laps

A winning margin of 129 points over Tom Ingram (145 if qualifying races are excluded)...

...but only 9 wins (10 if qualifying races are included) so not quite as successful as 2023 in this respect.

[u/Evantra_]

and 1 hair transplant

[u/Brief-Poetry6434 → u/Evantra_]

🤣 That too!

[u/SevenDeadlyWhims]

A generational talent now with generational records.

Truly one of the best 5 full time drivers the modern (90s and onwards) BTCC has ever seen, who would be the other 4 for everyone else?

I'm going with (in no particular order) -

Muller

Plato

Thompson

Turkington

[u/Tausif_1307 → u/SevenDeadlyWhims]

Surely he’s up there as the GOAT touring car driver period. I think he’d prevail regardless of the era and competition. Guy is a machine

[u/Brief-Poetry6434 → u/Tausif_1307]

If other Touring Car series besides the BTCC are taken into account, I'd say he's up there with the likes of Roberto Ravaglia, Yvan Muller, Bernd Schneider to name a few...

[u/akrapov → u/SevenDeadlyWhims]

This is challenging, because so many of the Super Touring drivers were greats. There wasn't enough titles to go around. Biela has 5 class wins at Le Mans. Aiello took BTCC, DTM and Le Mans titles.

You could pick 5 drivers just from the 90s as the best BTCC has ever seen and it'd be hard to argue it. It was the only time the series was a true global championship - it just happened to not leave the UK.

[u/Brief-Poetry6434 → u/akrapov]

Biela won Le Mans outright 5 times.

[u/akrapov → u/Brief-Poetry6434]

That’s an odd nit pick but yes. An outright win is also a class win. I was trackside for a good few of Bielas Le Mans wins.

[u/Brief-Poetry6434 → u/akrapov]

Not intended as a nitpick. Just saying Biela's class wins were also outright wins.

[u/spindledick → u/SevenDeadlyWhims]

What about Menu? He's the only double champion of the Super Touring era (though in fairness, 2000 was relatively easy)

[u/SevenDeadlyWhims → u/spindledick]

Yes he almost made the list but whichever way there are going to be some fantastic drivers missing out! (And I didn't want to go on championships alone)

[u/Brief-Poetry6434 → u/spindledick]

2000? Relatively easy?

What about 1997 when he won half of the races held that year?

[u/Lukeno94]

Can't exclude qualifying races from the points tally, because that completely changes how race 1 goes and how the weekend goes from there.

[u/Brief-Poetry6434 → u/Lukeno94]

I wasn't intentionally excluding Qualifying races.

Why can't people just make an effort to actually be impressed?

[u/Lukeno94 → u/Brief-Poetry6434]

Where did I say I wasn't impressed? Good grief. I was only commenting on one small part.

[u/Brief-Poetry6434 → u/Lukeno94]

Well, to me, you came across as not impressed for that very reason.

What I meant was Sutton would still have set a new record for the number of points in one season even without the introduction of Qualifying races.

[u/LostTheGameOfThrones]

Yeah but he's only done that because he's bought our the championship!!!

[u/The_Arpie → u/LostTheGameOfThrones]

What are you on about?

[u/LostTheGameOfThrones → u/The_Arpie]

The classic Twitter nonsense that gets spouted against Ash only being successful because he's paid off Gow and co.

I would have thought the Ash Sutton flair would have made it obvious I was being sarcastic.

[u/The_Arpie → u/LostTheGameOfThrones]

Still not sure what you are on about. The post is simply listing Ash's achievments. Don't like it scroll on. You shouldn't need to invoke an entirely different service to explain what you are trying to say.

[u/LostTheGameOfThrones → u/The_Arpie]

My guy. It is a joke.

I am very clearly an Ash fan.

[u/Brief-Poetry6434 → u/LostTheGameOfThrones]

The damage is done.

[u/LostTheGameOfThrones → u/Brief-Poetry6434]

I obviously forgot that we have to all become miserable bastards during the off season.

My bad for making a joke!

[u/Brief-Poetry6434 → u/LostTheGameOfThrones]

I don't resort to being miserable during the off-season.

Not everyone could tell you were joking.

[u/LostTheGameOfThrones → u/Brief-Poetry6434]

Eh, like I said, I would have thought the Sutton flair would have made it fairly obvious.

[u/GoldVader → u/LostTheGameOfThrones]

If it had been any more obvious, it would have been slapping people in the face.

[u/Brief-Poetry6434 → u/LostTheGameOfThrones]

Well, it doesn't work on everyone.