Ash Sutton heads to his favourite track on the BTCC circuit with a horrible feeling his title chances are slipping away.

The defending champion’s grip on his crown is looser than a gossip’s tongue after a wretched weekend at Oulton Park that saw him slip to 13th place in the championship, 66 points behind leader Colin Turkington.

Now the 24-year-old Adrian Flux Subaru Racing driver is hoping for “something magical” at Croft, where he took a win and two seconds last season, to get his challenge back on track.

But unless there’s a significant improvement in engine performance from his Subaru Levorg, Sutton knows a repeat of 2017’s heroics looks increasingly unlikely.

“It’s the best opportunity we are going to have all season…”

“We showed last year, when everything’s working well, what we can do here, but it could be a completely different story this weekend,” he said, with just three points bagged from his latest outing at Oulton Park.

“It’s the best opportunity we are going to have all season – my favourite track, a rear wheel drive track with high degradation in the tyres. This will be a good insight as to where we are.

“Realistically, defending my title is becoming less and less of a possibility.”

It’s a hard pill to swallow for a young man who swept to the title last year in only his second season in the BTCC, overcoming a difficult start to dominate the championship and see off the experienced Turkington.

“Unless something magical happens at Croft it’s only going to get harder and harder, and that’s a real shame for me because I’m a racer and I want to go out there and want to at least try to defend my title,” said Sutton who, along with BMR team-mates Jason Plato and Josh Price, has suffered from a lack of straight-line speed all season.

“I would love to go and win it again, but if someone beats me fair and square I’ll be hurting inside but I’ll shake their hand, even if it’s my biggest rival.

“But, at the moment, I can’t get to that stage to try to defend my title, I can feel it slipping away and that makes my life a little bit more stressful. It’s a bit disheartening.”

“I was putting every last bit of performance I had in me to try and make a move…”

One thing Sutton will not do is give up trying to wrestle every inch of performance from his car, despite the speed trap data making the Levorg’s power deficit a matter of public record.

At Oulton Park, the Essex-based racer hauled his car to 15th in qualifying before suffering traffic problems in the first two races to wreck his weekend.

“I put more effort into that qualifying lap than any last year, and to only get to where we got just shows how bad the situation is for us,” he said.

Starting towards the back of the grid in race three, Sutton this time benefited from the carnage ahead of him to move up to 13th, but failed to make further inroads.

“It was not for the lack of trying,” he added. “I was putting every last bit of performance I had in me to try and make a move.

“I may have come from the back of the grid to 13th, but I only overtook two cars, one off the start and one because he had a moment.

“I got gifted the rest from casualties from incidents, it wasn’t like I stormed through.

“We’re a sitting duck in a straight line. There was a little visual from on-board Jason’s car just how bad our situation is, when he was overtaken by Moffat.

“Even if you’ve got the run on someone, by the next corner they’re ahead.”

Qualifying is live on btcc.net from 3pm, with the racing live on ITV4 from 11.15am on Sunday.

Find out more about Adrian Flux’s Race Vehicle Insurance.