NAPA Racing UK’s Ash Sutton clinched a record-breaking fifth British Touring Car Championship drivers’ title with a dominant drive to victory in race two at Silverstone.

Sutton, racing with a full boost allocation and on the favourable soft-compound tyre, started the race from 12th on the grid needing just one point to clinch the title.

At the start, Power Maxed Racing’s Aiden Moffat held his lead, whilst behind him Team VERTU’s Tom Chilton got ahead of the second PMR Audi of Mikey Doble, who once again got off to a sub-par start.

Sutton was quickly moving forwards, however, taking four places on the opening tour to end the lap in eighth, before hauling himself up to fifth a lap later.

On lap three, WSR’s Daryl De Leon moved past Chilton for third on the Wellington Straight, and the BMW driver spent the next two laps closing down Moffat’s early lead.

With Moffat lacking both boost and a favourable tyre, De Leon picked him off with ease on lap six to take the lead.

However, it was a relatively short-lived affair; by this stage, Sutton had got himself into third, and the champion-elect got by Moffat himself a lap later.

Headlights ablaze, Sutton closed down De Leon’s lead over two laps and going into Copse corner on the ninth lap he made a late dive for the inside and took the lead with style.

Sutton then cantered free to his 56th BTCC victory by over five seconds, making history in the process as the first five-time BTCC champion.

De Leon faded thereafter, with CPRL’s Adam Morgan overtaking the BMW on lap 14 to take second, which the Mercedes driver would hold to the chequered flag.

WSR’s Charles Rainford overtook his team-mate with three laps to go to complete the podium, earning his fourth podium finish of the season, with De Leon taking fourth.

CPRL’s Daniel Rowbottom was fifth, ahead of the second NAPA Ford of Dan Cammish in sixth.

Laser Tools Racing’s Árón Taylor-Smith was the top Toyota driver in seventh, making a superb double-pass just after the halfway distance on the struggling Doble and also his Toyota team-mate Gordon Shedden.

Team VERTU’s Tom Ingram took until lap 18 to break into the top ten, struggling to an eighth-place finish with the medium tyre despite having a full allocation of TOCA Turbo Boost, whilst the top ten was completed by Moffat and Speedworks Motorsport’s Josh Cook.

After the race, the top eight were drawn to be reversed on the grid for the final race of the day, handing pole position to Moffat.

Restart Racing’s Chris Smiley took the chequered flag in tenth, but the Hyundai driver was handed a five-second time penalty for exceeding track limits, dropping him to 18th.

As a result, Chilton was 11th, whilst Shedden fell back in the final laps to 12th.

Restart Racing’s Daniel Lloyd failed to start the race due to an engine issue with his Hyundai.