Tom Ingram with “a lot of changes to make” after topping FP1

Despite taking the fastest time in FP1, Tom Ingram knows there’s still a lot of work to do to continue his strong pace throughout the opening day at Croft.

The Speedworks driver took his Toyota Avensis to the top spot by 0.656 of a second over Andy Priaulx, who had sat on the top of the times for the majority of the session before Ingram’s last gasp lap.

“We’ve had a few of [practice sessions] now where we’ve ended up P1,” Ingram told TouringCarTimes. “It’s nice but like I say every time it’s only Free Practice so we can’t look into it too deeply. We’ve still got a lot of changes to make to the car to improve the balance, which we’re not happy with at all at the moment. That’s the plan – we don’t want to stay too stagnant.”

Ingram’s time came right at the end of free practice with his final lap of the session. Lapping over half a second than the rest of the field, his time of 1:24.567 was just one tenth off the qualifying lap record.

“The pace will obviously improve and get stronger as the day goes on,” he continued. “We saw that at Oulton Park and it’s going to be no different here. The pace will come down by at least another second yet so we’ve got plenty of work to do.”

The weather at Croft suggests that qualifying will be bone dry, but forecasts have predicted a wet race day, posing some potential setup conundrums for people looking for a strong race pace.

“It’s difficult because until the weather comes there’s not a lot you can do,” explained Ingram.”We’ve just got to get today sorted and deal with what we’ve got to tomorrow.”