Daniella Sutton achieves career best results, scores double top-5 finish at Anglesey

Daniella Sutton continued her impressive progress in her second season in the BRSCC Fiesta Junior Championship by scoring two top-5 finishes at Anglesey, where the BRDC Rising Star secured a best starting spot of fourth and carried forward this speed into the three races where she twice achieved a career best finish.

Photo credits: James Roberts

Daniella Sutton continued her impressive progress in her second season in the BRSCC Fiesta Junior Championship by scoring two top-5 finishes at Anglesey. The BRDC Rising Star topped free practice and held provisional pole during the early part of qualifying, before securing a best starting spot of fourth.

Sutton carried forward this speed into the three races where she twice achieved a career best finish. After securing her first ever top-5 result in race one, Sutton spent the majority of race two running in a provisional podium spot before taking the chequered flag in fourth. The Race Car Consultants driver ended the weekend with an eighth-place result to solidify her place inside the top-10 of the overall championship standings.

After securing three top-10 finishes in the first four races of the season, Sutton arrived at Anglesey in seventh position in the overall standings. The BRDC Rising Star showed excellent racecraft in the previous round at Mallory Park where she achieved a highest finish of seventh, while finishing less than five seconds away from the race victory in an uninterrupted race one. Sutton was now looking to maintain this consistency while pushing towards the top-5.

Anglesey was another new circuit for Sutton to learn and therefore the Race Car Consultants driver was looking for a fast start to the weekend. Track conditions were partially damp for the fifteen-minute free practice session on Saturday morning and this proved an extra challenge for the expanded grid of 25 drivers.

Sutton was quickly on the pace and remained inside the overall top-6 for the majority of the session. As the times improved in the latter stages, Sutton excelled as she jumped to the top of the times and ended free practice as the fastest driver. Her quickest time of a 1:49.113 was over half a second quicker than her nearest challenger and this marked another excellent step forward for Sutton.

Qualifying took place on Saturday afternoon with conditions now fully dry at Anglesey. Despite the change in conditions, Sutton’s pace remained strong and she was again the fastest driver after all the drivers had completed two flying laps.

As the session progressed, a number of her rivals were able to improve and set a faster time, however Daniella achieved her career best qualifying result in the BRSCC Fiesta Junior Championship. Sutton’s fastest time of a 1:48.475 was quick enough for a fourth-place starting spot as the Race Car Consultants driver made a confident start on her first trip to the circuit.

Photo credits: James Roberts

Conditions remained dry for the first of three races on Sunday with Sutton lining up from fourth position for race one. Daniella initially lost one position off the line to Dara McInerney who moved through into third with Isaac Doble now directly ahead in fourth. Sutton held down a position inside the top-5 during lap one and with Christopher Doble and Oliver Heron running side-by-side behind her, this enabled Daniella to build up a comfortable gap behind.

At the end of lap two, Sutton’s margin to sixth place was approaching three seconds and she could therefore focus on mounting a challenge on the four drivers ahead. After settling into her rhythm, Sutton recaptured her excellent pace from the previous day and on lap four, she was the fastest driver on track. This ensured the gap to leader Thomas Merritt remained at just four seconds, while she continued to close in on Doble ahead.

A personal best time on lap six saw Daniella cut the margin to Doble by three-quarters of a second and on lap seven she was again the fastest driver on track. As the race entered the closing stages, the battle at the front of the field intensified and after Archie Davies mounted a challenge on Merritt for the lead, he then became under pressure from McInerney.

These battles resulted in Doble and Sutton bringing themselves in contention on the final lap with the fight for the final spots on the podium going down to the final corners. Sutton was once again the quickest driver on the circuit during the final lap and this ensured she claimed her career-best finish in the BRSCC Fiesta Junior Championship with an excellent fifth-place result.

Following a quick turnaround of just a couple of hours, the drivers lined up for race two of the weekend. The grid positions were based on the results of race one with Sutton therefore starting from fifth position. As the lights went out, it was initially another tricky start with Daniella losing out to Lewis Islin. A fantastic late-braking move from Sutton then saw her reclaim the position before also passing Dara McInerney to claim third position.

Sutton ended lap one in third, before the race was red flagged with Callie Clifford’s car stopped on the side of the circuit. With only one lap having been completed, a full restart took place and therefore Sutton lined up from her original grid position in fifth.

The new race duration was set to twelve-minutes and as the drivers accelerated away, Sutton got her best start of the weekend. She immediately moved ahead of McInerney and Isaac Doble to reclaim third position. The race was then neutralised with the car of Oscar Homerstone requiring recovery and just four minutes were left on the clock when the green flag was shown.

On the restart, Sutton had to defend from Doble and he moved ahead with just two laps remaining. The pace was fast at the head of the field in the closing stages of the race and although Sutton’s speed was strong, she narrowly missed out on her first podium finish by just six tenths of a second. Nonetheless, it was another excellent drive from Daniella who again improved upon her best result in the championship.

For the final race of the weekend, Sutton lined up from fourth on the grid courtesy of her excellent race two result. As the drivers launched off the line, Daniella slipped back and after running side-by-side through the opening turns, Sutton completed lap one in sixth position. The Race Car Consultants driver then fell behind Jack Burgess as the racing inside the top-10 was extremely close.

As the drivers continued to exchange positions, Sutton dropped behind Christopher Doble on lap four into eighth position. Two laps later, Daniella was able to take advantage of side-by-side racing ahead to pass Doble, while Oliver Heron found a way ahead of both drivers. Therefore, Sutton remained in eighth position as the race entered the closing stages with minimal differences in the lap times between the drivers inside the top-10.

Sutton did a nice job to maintain her position to take the chequered flag in eighth, completing an excellent weekend at Anglesey where she twice achieved a new personal best result. Daniella also secured her largest haul of points in a BRSCC Fiesta Junior Championship weekend to date to consolidate her place inside the top-10 of the championship standings. Sutton will now be looking to use her past experiences of Snetterton to target her first podium finish as the young drivers make their second trip of the season to Norfolk on the weekend of July 19th/20th.