Croft provides strong points haul for Tom Ingram

Tom Ingram enjoyed a trio of strong results at Croft, taking home an impressive points haul after three top-eight finishes.

Ingram, who is a big fan of Croft, was delighted to come away from North Yorkshire with his strongest weekend of the year,a weekend that almost saw him take his first Independents’ victory, narrowly being beaten to the line by Team BMR’s Colin Turkington.

“I got a good start in race one, but everybody bunched up on the inside going into Tower Bend for the first time and I dropped a couple of places. It was really enjoyable battling back, because we had a lot of speed and after every overtaking move, I immediately set about hunting down the next one – the car was so good that I didn’t want the race to end! It was a shame to so narrowly miss out on my first Independents’ trophy; Colin defended the inside line into the final hairpin and going all the way around the outside was always going to be a long shot, but I had to give it a go…
“I was pleased to finish eighth, though, and to come away with the same result in race two with the soft tyres and extra weight on-board was very satisfying. The car felt great for the first ten laps, then as soon as the tyres fell away, I had to concentrate on holding station, because I knew the guys behind were closing in all the time. We were struggling with some vibration issues, too, which made the last couple of laps very difficult and I was certainly relieved to see the chequered flag!”

The 21 year old, who now sits 12th in the championship standings, was confident heading in to Croft, one of his own personal favourite circuits. Given his current form, which saw some good pace in third race at Oulton Park before his Croft performance, the Speedworks driver will now surely have his eyes set on a top ten points finish come the end of the second half of the season.

“After our pace in the final race at Oulton Park, I felt like we had taken a genuine step forward and I was excited heading to Croft,” he said. “It’s one of my favourite circuits and I’ve always gone well there so we expected to be quick – although we did surprise ourselves a bit in practice! The car felt really strong, which gave us a lot of confidence ahead of qualifying; we knew it would just be a question of stringing it all together – and that was precisely what we didn’t manage to do! It was immensely frustrating, because on my fastest lap, I was almost half a second up on my previous best when I hit traffic, which cost us a top five slot at the very least.

“Still, the most encouraging aspect is that we were quick in all three races and we’re not massively far away now from consistently cracking the top five. It’s all going in the right direction and I can’t wait for the second half of the season!”