Ashley Sutton (Bishops Stortford) and Ant Whorton-Eales (Lichfield) ran out the winners of this weekend’s two Renault UK Clio Cup rounds at Rockingham but it is still Ash Hand (Nuneaton) who leads the championship standings as the calendar moves on to its penultimate two races of the season at sister Northamptonshire circuit Silverstone later this month (Sat 26/Sun 27 September).
BMR Restart-backed driver Sutton resisted pressure from Team Pyro team-mate Hand to take the win in Saturday’s race. In the closing stages Whorton-Eales moved into second place only for Hand to fight back and reclaim the position shortly before the chequered flag while another of the main title contenders, WDE Motorsport’s Paul Rivett, was forced to retire.
In Sunday’s race – shown live on ITV4 – Whorton-Eales dominated from the front for his first win since Donington Park in April. His win also marked a maiden victory for his new team Maximum Motorsport. Rivett rebuffed Hand to finish second as Team Cooksport’s George Jackson (Bedford) also got in the act with a career-best fourth.
Meanwhile Sutton was off the podium in fifth after a hard-fought race with Cooksport’s Rory Collingbourne – on a high after his own personal best result to date of fourth the previous day. Saturday’s race had also seen WDE’s Rory Green (Hildenborough) achieve a ‘best-ever’ finish of fifth and 16-year-old Josh Price (Redbourn) take an excellent seventh for Pyro on his Clio Cup debut. Fellow newcomer Luke Kidsley (Northampton) impressed as well with seventh in today’s race for JamSport Racing.
Elsewhere in the Masters Cup class for older drivers Pyro’s Mark Howard (Oakham) and 20Ten Racing’s Peter Felix (Hinckley) shared the honours.
The results of the two races mean Hand leads the championship by 17 points from Whorton-Eales with four races – two each at Silverstone and Brands Hatch (Sat 6/Sun 7 Oct) – to go and a potential maximum of 136 still to be won. Sutton is third, 35 adrift of Hand, and Rivett fourth, some 83 behind…
After his win today Whorton-Eales enthused: “That’s just what we needed after Hand had taken the championship lead away from me at Knockhill. It was the Maximum team’s debut that weekend but here we have been much stronger and really brought the car on over the weekend. We’ve had massive pace in both races and I am feeling really confident going to Silverstone.”
Saturday winner Sutton added: “It’s been a weekend of mixed fortunes really. The win yesterday was terrific and after starting from pole position today I really felt we had the pace to do the double which would have really helped us close the gap to Ash. Fifth is not what I wanted but at least it is more points and the fight is not over yet by a long way.”
Hand, who had shattered the qualifying lap record to take pole for Saturday’s race, commented: “As ever we’ve been right on the pace all weekend and I had come here looking for two more wins to add to my seven already this year. OK, it’s not quite worked out but second and third… I can’t grumble too much with that. It’s still up to the others to try and catch me and they are running out of races. It’s still looking good, I’d say.”
Rivett, already with three Clio Cup titles to his name, said: “With just four races left it’s a massively tall order to turn things around now but the points say it is still possible and, just as I showed in today’s race in my fight with Hand, I never give up. The top three will start to feel the pressure in these closing rounds so I just need to ensure I’m in the right place at the right time if they slip up. The WDE car has definitely got the performance to win all four of those races.”
Top 6 (provisional), Renault UK Clio Cup, Race 1, Rockingham, Sat 5 Sept 2015
1 Ashley Sutton BMR Restart with Pyro 16 laps in 25m32.995s 2 Ash Hand Team Pyr +2.664s 3 Ant Whorton-Eales Maximum Motorsport +2.967s 4 Rory Collingbourne Team Cooksport +9.220s 5 Rory Green WDE Motorsport +12.463s 6 George Jackson Team Cooksport +14.630s
Fastest Lap: Paul Rivett (WDE Motorsport), 1m30.322s (77.32mph)
Top 6 (provisional), Renault UK Clio Cup, Race 2, Rockingham, Sun 6 Sept 2015
1 Ant Whorton-Eales Maximum Motorsport 14 laps in 21m28.007s 2 Paul Rivett WDE Motorsport +8.434s 3 Ash Hand Team Pyro +9.362s 4 George Jackson Team Cooksport +10.182s 5 Ashley Sutton BMR Restart with Pyro +20.104s 6 Rory Collingbourne Team Cooksport +20.228s
Fastest Lap: Hand 1m30.478s (77.19mph)
Points Leaders (provisional): 1 Ash Hand 386 points; 2 Ant Whorton-Eales 369; 3 Ashley Sutton 351; 4 Paul Rivett 303; 5 Charles Ladell 234; 6 Jack Mitchell (20Ten Racing) 202; 7 Rory Collingbourne (Team Cooksport) 177; 8 Jordan Stilp (20Ten) 172; 9 George Jackson (Cooksport) 169; 10 Dan Holland (JamSport Racing) 116 etc.
