Photo: PSP Images

Tom Ingram fastest in day one of Snetterton Dunlop tyre test

Speedworks Motorsport’s Tom Ingram was fastest of all at the end of the day in the Dunlop tyre test at the Snetterton circuit, with the Toyota Avensis driver’s fastest time set in the morning, as rain set in during the afternoon.

Ingram’s time of 1:55.932 was faster than the qualifying lap record of Colin Turkington from 2015, set in the Team BMR Volkswagen CC.

The closest to Ingram was the Motorbase Performance Ford Focus ST of Andrew Jordan, just under half a second adrift, while Eurotech Honda driver Daniel Lloyd continued to show the front-running pace he has shown in recent race meetings, setting the third fastest time in his Civic Type R.

Lloyd’s team-mate Jeff Smith was also quick, fourth overall and just three tenths further back, with Rob Austin completing the top five in the Handy Motorsport Toyota.

“The car has felt really strong and we’ve just been playing around with different setups all day really. We’ve come up with a bit of a plan that we’ve been running through and we’ve just been trying to stick to it,” said Ingram to btcc.net.

“On the Friday or Saturday of a race meeting you don’t get a lot of time to tinker with the car and setups, the geometry and differentials. It’s been nice to have a morning where you can come up with some ideas.”

The championship front runners made a relatively undercover appearance on the timing sheets. Current championship leader Sam Tordoff was tenth fastest in the West Surrey Racing BMW 125i and the fastest of the three BMW drivers, with team-mates Jack Goff and Rob Collard 16th and 19th respectively.

The factory Honda Civics of Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal were 18th and 19th, while the four Subaru Levorgs of Team BMR were 20th, 21st, 22nd and 29th, with James Cole, Colin Turkington, Jason Plato and Warren Scott finishing in that order for the team.

Another day of testing takes place tomorrow.