Racing with Ashley Sutton

Two on the Trot
01/06/2010 - After leaving Brands with a good result, Ashley went to Castle Combe with more confidence. With
only having one test day at Combe on the 27/06/2010, putting it on pole was a great achievement. This is hopefully one of the First poles of the season for Ashley's. For the first 6 laps Ashley battled hard with Sam Oliveira and Martin Farmer. Lap 7 he broke the gap and brought it home to finishing 2.6secs ahead of second place.

Outstanding Drive At Brands Hatch
26/04/2010 - Ashley Sutton surprised a lot of people at Brands Hatch with a great drive. He had a
Amazing day on Saturday with his first Podium in Formula Vee. Ashley thought that was it
but he topped his weekend off with his First win at only his third Weekend racing.

Race stopped at Mallory Park
05/04/2010 - Ashley was working his way though the Field until the race was stopped due to a huge
Accident between ‘Dunlop Esses’ and ‘Shaws’. Still brought home a 9th after dropping
back to 13th.

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Awards in Racing so far...
He was also awarded the ‘LEWIS HAMILTON’ TRUE GRIT ‘twice’.
‘O’ PLATE – Ashley had to start at the back of the grids for all 3 heats with great results, he started 5th in the final and went on to WIN!
Ashley has broken many track records over his karting years and been awarded trophies for this!
He has also raced at club meetings, during his early years and also between championships, winning many trophies.
We have been told that this is the first time that someone has won SUPER 1, STARS OF TOMORROW and the ‘O’ PLATE all in one year!

Ashley will be racing in a different class from now on.
He will be racing in KF3, which is faster than KF3.
He will still be using an OCTANE go kart, same as he did in 2008.
‘OAKLEY’ has sponsored his race wear.
He will be running in NJR Race Team for the winter 2008-09 championship and they will also be running Ashley in 2009.
Ashley was presented with his trophy, for winning ‘Stars of Tomorrow’ at the Auto Sports Show. He was also invited, with his family, to the Autosport Awards 2007 on the 2nd December. This was held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London and was televised a few days later. Ashley met many motor sport celebrities including Jenson Button, Jason Plato and to top of the evening the one and only Lewis Hamilton! They all spoke to Ashley, with congratulations and wished him good luck in his future.


Career History so far...
Ashley cut his racing teeth in Hodesdon when his father, Warren Sutton, purchased his first Kart, and it was no surprise that by the age of 8 he was competing - the Sutton family has motorsport and racing in their blood, and it soon became visible that Ashley was no stranger to speed.

He began in earnest on two wheels, but soon found that his passion was for cars and spent countless laps in a Cadet Kart at local track Rye House.

From here the road widened and Ashley was soon competing in local club events where he proved success was in his nature. In 2002 at the age of 8, he competed in his first WTP series finishing 5th. By now the bug had bitten and Ashley was hooked.

The following year in 2003, Ashley entered his second series in WTP finishing 5th. He also raced in the Midland Championships where he recorded his first victory in competition winning the title. This brought another challenge the British Open (‘O’ Plate) where he finished an impressive 3rd.

In 2004 aged 10, the heat began to rise, Karting is an expensive passion and Ashley was delighted to join PITTS Racing a local team who had witnessed his talent and wanted to offer him a seat. Delighted, Ashley accepted and entered the WTP for the third season finishing 3rd overall. Entering the Midland Championships as reining Champion Ashley won for the 2nd consecutive year. It is worth noting that being part of a team and understanding the importance of teamwork is still a factor that Ashley values highly to this day.

Later the same year Ashley was entered in one of the Karting worlds largest UK events, Kart Grand Prix or Kart Masters where he dominated proceedings winning both of the finals! He also found time to finish 6th overall in the ‘O’ Plate.

2005 Witnessed the start of the Minimax Class where Ashley was competing in the Stars of Tomorrow, now better known as Formula Kart Stars. A six round Championship in which Ashley finished 6th overall, he also finished 2nd in the Midland Championships and 2nd in the London Cup at Rye House.

In 2006 Ashley won a seat at Coles Racing, another team keen to have him on board with his father Warren working all hours as Ashley’s mechanic. Entering the British Championships or Super 1 in his first year as a Rookie, he finished 3rd overall and won the Vega Rookie Cup by a considerable margin.

2007 was an incredible year a time that will always be remembered culminating in a head to head battle for first place between Ashley and a close rival. The season had been a close fought battle with just one round left in what was to be some epic racing.

Heat 1 - Started in 22nd (Don’t ask!), 10 lap race, finished 9th!
Heat 2 - Finished 3rd
Heat 3 - Finished 3rd

Final – Ashley needed to finish in between or above his 2 closest rivals who were starting ahead of him on the grid. Starting in 6th Ashley battled hard frustratingly dropping back to 9th with only four laps remaining. With almost all hope lost, he fought his way through the field and claimed 4th place in between his rivals to secure the title of BRITISH CHAMPION 2007.

Continuing his quest in the Stars of Tomorrow Series, Ashley joined forces with another team called NJR Motorsports, a team who had supplied Ashley with his Octane Kart. This move took Ashley to Europe, with the family travelling and supporting him in all races. One meeting that will remain a highlight of the year was held in Genk, Belgium. The meet consisted of 3 heats and a final simultaneously on both Saturday and Sunday. The way Ashley raced deserves to go down in Karting history. He simply dominated from start to finish, winning all six heats and both the Saturday and Sunday Finals. Having scored maximum points, he had won the title STARS OF TOMORROW CHAMPION, by 59 points meaning in theory he need not even enter the final round.

2008 KF3 Class – NJR Motorsports continued their support along with BIRCH ENGINEERING and new sponsor OAKLEY who provided Ashley with his race wear. Ashley was therefore able to enter Stars of Tomorrow and Super 1 but the highlight of the year was without question the European Qualifiers and final.
Ashley travelled to Spain for the qualifying rounds and finished an impressive 3rd. Onto Orense in France for the finals where a wet track brought out the talent Ashley has for racing in difficult conditions. His lap times were better that current French Junior Champion, Brandon Maisano who was on his home turf!
Starting in 12th on the grid, Ashley made some impressive overtaking moves to take him up to 4th place by the end of the first lap. Due to an engine power issue he dropped back to 12th but showed determination under immense pressure. An accident in the finals bent the chassis on Ashley’s Kart but he finished an impressive 12th and had recorded the fastest lap time in the wet demonstrating his ability to race in difficult conditions and with a damaged Kart.

2009 KF2 Class – The European Championships saw Ashley finish 2nd, 12th, 4th and 5th qualifying 10th in the Pre Finals. Race 1 witnessed a huge crash at the start which unfortunately resulted in Ashley dropping back to finish 22nd. He was to start the next race in 22nd place on the grid and showed grit and determination to get through the field making some outstanding overtaking moves, amazingly he was in 7th by the end of lap 1. He bagged 4th place by the end of the race which under the circumstances was a very impressive result, giving Ashley his highest points result in the European Championships.

2010 Formula Vee – This year Ashley and his father Warren made the difficult decision to leave Karting behind and enter the 750 Motorsport Clubs, Formula Vee Series. VW powered single seat racing that sorts the men form the boys as driver skill pays premium. The aim is to get Ashley experience in racing with little grip on the top UK circuits. He teamed up with Osport who have experience and talent in both the car and the pit lane. So far Ashley has competed in three race meetings, rising to the challenge and learning about the tracks and car with every lap. His latest meeting at the infamous Brands Hatch saw him take his first race win, overtaking an experienced Vee racer on the penultimate lap in a move that was praised by senior officials and marshals after the race. His ability to leap out of a Kart into the Vee car has been truly magnificent. He is attracting media and pit lane attention and we are looking forward to the remainder of the season where he is currently sitting in 5th overall and 1st in the Rookie Series points.

I like your helmet!

good luck with your season

Cheers!

And you!

Congratz on win! Good luck on your next races aswell! Ahh, I wish I could do karting

Those cars look fun to drive. What sort of specs are they? HP, 0-60 times approx etc. Are they tough to drive?

they have 105bhp to a car that weights 460kgs, o-60 is 3.4secs. Top speed is around 140mph and about 5mph faster in slip-stream

Basically it is like driving on 4 blokes of ice!!!!

We have Formula V over here in the states in the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) and they're allowed to run slicks, are you guys allowed to over there or no?

Congrats once agian Ash Nice blog as well

cheers duncan.

Louis, we have to run a persific tyre that is from dunlop, they are not slicks.

ah i see..... wonder why that is....

with the SCCA using slicks and you guys not that is.

i dunno, probs to keep the cost down for us. I would prefere slicks

I think they should have skinny road tyres in all motorsport

Lets get back to four-wheel drifting on cross-ply's!

Just watched Ash on MotorsTV take his win at brands. Well done mate, although you did just bump the guy out of the way to take 1st Only joking, good racing.

Cheers richy, it wasn't on perp-use just so hard to judge it when you traveling that fast! All the clerks said it was a racing incident and after we both were in the stewards office martian farmer admitted he didn't see me even know in the interview he said he did.

There was a martian farmer there?!?!?!?!

that was what the bloke was called who finished second.

lol i think he meant Martian Farmer as in a man who farms Martians lol

wow!!!

Is there a video of it??

Nice win, and great achievements mate!!!!!

there will be soon and i will post it up when i can get my hands on it.

No after seeing the footage it looks like i was in the wrong, but if it was a different angel then you would see that there was about a car width gap between us. That is when my front wheel was level with him but when he turned in and come off the brakes he clipped my front wheel. So people might think different of me now seeing it, but i couldn't do anything about it once i was half way up the inside of him.

http://www.raceandrallyuk.tv/
Bottom half of page, called 'Brands 2 part 4'

....Ben Anderson as in Autosport's Ben Anderson?

yup!