Torrential rain soaked the groups on the grid, forcing everybody onto wet-weather tyres, and Sutton was the grasp of the situations in his Motorbase Efficiency-run Ford Focus ST.
He had already made up one place when the security automobile unleashed the sphere after 5 laps of assessing the situations, due to Aron Taylor-Smith pitting his Energy Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra with a technical drawback.
As soon as the race acquired going, reversed-grid poleman Ronan Pearson eased away from the sphere on his native circuit on the wheel of his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N.
A ferocious battle for second between Ricky Collard (Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla) and Dan Lloyd (Crew Exhausting Cupra Leon) acquired spicey after two laps of green-flag motion.
They rubbed panels as they raced down the start-finish straight, and Lloyd secured the nook into Duffus Dip, whereas Collard launched off the within kerb and into the West Surrey Racing BMW 330e M Sport of Stephen Jelley, delaying each and permitting Sutton to slide by into third.
The security automobile appeared once more to permit marshals to extract Nick Halstead’s Hyundai from the gravel on the hairpin, and it took one and a half laps of racing earlier than Sutton acquired previous Lloyd and into second place on the exit of the chicane.
By the top of the lap, Sutton was 1.398 seconds adrift of Pearson, however he rapidly reeled within the Scot.
On the finish of the next tour, Pearson ran large on the hairpin, and Sutton moved into the lead.
Pearson remained in second place for six extra laps earlier than Josh Cook, charging from eighth on the grid, moved his One Motorsport Honda Civic Kind R in entrance on the run to the hairpin.
Then, on the ultimate lap, BTCC rookie Pearson allowed title-chasing team-mate Tom Ingram by into third at Clark, a state of affairs the reigning champion described as “I really feel like I simply kicked a pet!”
Forward of them, {Cook} briefly trimmed the hole to Sutton, however the chief responded with a brand new quickest lap and took the chequered flag with a 9.636s benefit.
After his reversed-grid disasters within the earlier two rounds at Oulton Park and Croft, Sutton stated: “We’ve acquired over our race-three hurdle, and what higher option to do it than with a win?
“I wanted that, only for myself,” he added after taking a 39-point championship lead over Ingram. “The factor was on absolute rails.”
Each {Cook} and Ingram had moved up a few positions after the ultimate restart when catastrophe struck the WSR BMW squad – Jake Hill acquired onto a moist patch into the hairpin and tapped fifth-placed team-mate Jelley right into a spin, bringing each vehicles successfully to a halt.
Hill recovered first, however one other incident – he ran large into the gravel on the hairpin – restricted him to 14th place on the end.
Lloyd was working fifth with 4 laps remaining when he ran large at Duffus Dip defending from Collard, and was pressured to concede positions to the Toyota and the sister Exhausting Cupra of Dexter Patterson.
Collard then needed to fend off the fired-up Patterson, working strongly on his dwelling circuit, whereas one other Scot, Aiden Moffat (One Honda), additionally acquired forward of Lloyd for seventh.
George Gamble (Speedworks Toyota) and Dan Cammish (Motorbase Ford) rounded out the highest 10.