BTCC: Sutton romps to pole position at Donington Park

With red-flags and changeable conditions hampering the day's practice running, the pecking order remained something of an unknown heading into qualifying, but it proved to be a head-to-head between the top two title protagonists.

Defending champion Tom Ingram sat at the top of the times for much of the session after a number of hot-laps saw the Hyundai i30N driver lead Sutton as the shootout entered its final minutes.

However, Sutton set the timesheets alight with eight-minutes of the session to go. The three-time champion produced a 1’33.1s lap, which moved him over 0.3s clear of Ingram’s time and into provisional pole.

Not taking the news lying down Ingram responded and improved with a 1’33.336s lap. But Sutton, undeterred, went even faster to extend his advantage over the Hyundai driver with a 1'33.154s lap.

Toyota Gazoo Racing UK's Ricky Collard produced another strong qualifying effort to secure a place on the second row of the grid with the third fastest time, narrowly beating four-time champion Colin Turkington, who had to settle for fourth.

Having languished around seventh for most of the session, Team BMW's Turkington rose up to third late in the session before falling behind Collard's last-gasp effort for third.

Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall's Aron Taylor-Smith navigated his way to a solid top-five qualifying result with the fifth fastest time and shares the third row of the grid with BMWs Jake Hill in sixth.

One Motorsport's Josh Cook set the seventh fastest time aboard his Honda Civic Type-R, while Adam Morgan, Ronan Pearson and Dan Rowbottom completed the remainder of the top-ten race one grid order in eighth, ninth and tenth