It was the best of times, it was the worst of times for Ash Sutton at Snetterton last weekend.

Now, after shooting up, and then sliding back down the BTCC points table, the reigning champion is determined to put his Diamond Double race frustration behind him in a quest for points at Rockingham.

Sutton’s heroics in the wet at Snetterton had put him within touching distance of the championship lead, only for most of his gains to be wiped out thanks to a 30-second time penalty in the double-points finale.

From third to seventh, in one race

The 24-year-old had gone from third, just 13 points off the lead, to 39 points back in seventh in just one race.

It was a hard pill to swallow for the championship’s in-form driver, but anyone who has watched the Essex-based racer’s rise to the top won’t be surprised if he still has a big role to play in this season’s title battle – starting in Northamptonshire this weekend.

Indeed, slipping down to seventh in the standings has provided a silver lining for Sutton’s hopes of a good grid position, with just 27kg of success ballast to be carried in qualifying on a track that should suit the Subaru Levorg.

Rockingham went well last year…

“The lower weight will be a massive help to us,” said Sutton, who took a race win, second and fifth-placed finishes at Rockingham in 2017 as he closed in on a maiden title.

“Our ideal situation would be to go into the last round in 7th but only 10 points off the lead, to go into race one with hardly any weight on. When we pick weight up then our lack of outright pace really hurts us, so not having as much is going to help.

“Rockingham was one of our biggest points hauls of last year. As a package, we are not quite in the same place so from the final corner to turn two should be interesting.

Downpour meant a positive start at Snetterton…

The possibility of rain on Sunday afternoon will not faze a driver nicknamed “Nemo” in his karting days, and it was the downpour in south Norfolk that gave his Snetterton weekend such a positive start.

From ninth on the grid, Sutton completed a now-trademark move round the outside to surge into second place by the end of the first lap of a race that will live long in the memory.

“Normally when it rains I’m a bit hyped up, it’s my type of weather, but for some reason at Snetterton I didn’t quite go into the first race like that,” he said.

“We had a few new things on the car that we’d never used in those conditions so we weren’t sure how the car would perform.

“Getting into second place by the end of lap one was critical for the results in race one and two.”

Sutton spent the rest of the race hunting down Jack Goff in the Honda Civic Type R, pulling off a daring overtaking manoeuvre on the final lap only to get outgunned by a whisker in the sprint to the line off the final bend.

“Coming off the corner, and I’ve looked at the footage, I moved left and right not because of wheelspin – that was me physically changing direction trying to work out what way to defend, because I knew I was going to be in a drag race,” he said.

“I did not get one ounce of wheelspin, I had good traction, it was just a drag race and power won the race.”

Hitting the front early in race two, Sutton was able to dictate the pace and hold off the late push from former teammate Josh Cook in the Vauxhall Astra.

“When we’re at the front in clean air we can drag a lap time out of the car to a degree and control our own pace,” he added.

“In qualifying when everyone is going flat-out we are lacking a lap time at places like Snetterton, but in a race people do slow up and start to think about looking after their tyres.

“When you get mixed up in the pack it’s very hard sometimes, very stop start in traffic, and it ruins our momentum, which is what we need to get a lap time because our pace is through the corners.”

After two stunning drives in a car still well down on the speed-gun statistics, Sutton entered the 60-mile, double points race having qualified in 15th place just hoping to score enough points to keep him in touch at the head of the standings.

“I should have qualified in P6 or 7, but got held up by Rob Austin so I definitely needed rain to get any kind of result,” he said.

“I was in the garage doing rain dances.”

“Here, Croft and Thruxton are the most abrasive courses on the calendar – it suits rear wheel drive and it suits our car, so fingers crossed we can get back into the sort of rhythm we had at Croft.”

That 30-second drive-through penalty

But disaster struck as the team failed to have the Levorg’s wheels on the ground for the three-minute warning cut off, leading to a 30-second drive-through penalty.

“There was an error – no-one’s perfect and it cost us massively,” he said. “But as a team we win and lose together, there are days I make mistakes that cost us and the team points.

“It was hard to take, it almost felt like the work in races one and two was undone, that the points haul over our rivals ahead of us was thrown away.

“It was a kick in the backside because I had got right back to where I needed to be and then, bang, I’ve lost about 30 points in one race.

“But we have a couple of our favourite rounds to come, and it’s how you respond that counts.”

A taste of TCR UK racing…

Since Snetterton, Sutton has been keeping his racing hand in with a guest appearance in the TCR UK championship, winning both races at Oulton Park in the VFR Racing Honda Civic.

“It was a last minute call-up because a driver had pulled out,” he said. “I had a phone call very late Wednesday evening, it was sorted Thursday morning and I was out in the car on Friday.

“From the moment of getting in the car I topped every time sheet and result, so I can’t complain.

“The cars are similar to a touring car, but very forgiving – you can find your limits a little easier.

“On a pole lap in a touring car you constantly feel like you are on the edge, whereas in a TCR car you’re very much within your limits.

“The TCR is international, with European and world racing, so if it can fit in with the BTCC calendar then I’ll look at it in the future.”

Racing is live on ITV4 from 10:45am on Sunday.

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