Season’s best at Brands for top rookie Tom Ingram

The BTCC’s standout rookie driver Tom Ingram signed off his maiden campaign with a flourish at Brands Hatch, netting a trio of top 10 finishes and a season’s best fifth in the second encounter.

The 2013 Ginetta Supercup champion took a total of 13 top tens over the course of the year, with a fine weekend in Kent teed up by a soldi 11th on the grid on Saturday.

This yielded eighth, sixth and ninth places for the Speedworks Motorsport driver in the races, with the second result becoming fifth after Jason Plato was penalised.

Reflecting on the weekend, Ingram said: “Everybody concertina-d up into the first corner at the beginning of race one and I had to take to the grass on the inside of Paddock Hill Bend to avoid it; fortunately that paid off and we emerged without any real damage and still in a decent position. I then managed to pass both Foster and Cole on the same lap before the safety car re-appeared, and after that I was chasing Giovanardi for seventh, but it was a bit of a cat-and-mouse situation because I would catch him over one half of the lap and he would pull away again over the other half.

“Race two was another lively affair and we had some fun battles. We struggled a bit for outright pace, but I was controlling the gap back to Foster behind and was given a bit of breathing space when he began fighting with Smith. When I saw that Árón had got past Nick, though, I knew I had a tougher job on my hands. Over the last couple of laps, he got alongside me on several occasions and I had to defend as if my life depended on it! I was over-the-moon to finish fifth – especially as I had to work so hard to hang onto it.

“The rain was torrential in race three – there was so much spray being kicked up that you could barely even see where you were going most of the time! Some of it was quite literally just guesswork. I was relieved simply to get to the end, in truth, and sneaking past Morgan for ninth on the penultimate lap was a bonus and meant we achieved our pre-weekend target. The Speedworks guys are a fantastic bunch and have all put in so much effort throughout, so it was really satisfying to repay that with such a strong performance.”

The 21-year-old said he learned a lot in his first year in the BTCC.

“This whole season has been a big learning curve for me, not least from the point-of-view of adapting to a front wheel-drive car and settling into life in the BTCC. It’s been a rollercoaster ride at times, but we’ve ended on a positive note and hopefully we can carry this momentum forward now as we look to even more success in 2015,” added Ingram.