Tom Ingram: “We want to forget this weekend ever happened”

Speedworks Motorsport’s Tom Ingram was left to rue a disastrous weekend at Rockingham, with not a single point to show for his endeavours after a multitude of issues on raceday.

After posting a strong seventh best time in his Toyota Avensis in Saturday’s sodden qualifying session, Ingram’s hopes of a good opening race were ended after a hefty whack from Triple Eight Racing’s Ash Sutton.

After dragging a bumperless Avensis to 16th at the flag, race two was over before it even started thanks to a turbo failure on the lap to the grid.

To round things off, Ingram retired with suspension damage on lap 15 of the final race after contact with Team Hard’s Jake Hill, after charging through the field from 29th to ninth.

Speaking to TouringCarTimes, Ingram said: “It’s just been a bad day at the office. Anything which could go wrong has gone wrong. But we’ll take it on the chin and move on to Silverstone.

“[The contact in race one’s] not ideal. It’s the same kind of contact we’ve been used to from Ash before. It cost us the first race, and there was nothing we could do about the second race with the turbo failure.

“Then the third race was about perfect until towards the end.”

Ingram has now dropped out of the top 10 in the championship standings, something he is looking to rectify when the series returns at Silverstone next month.

“I’ve every faith we will come back strong,” he said. “The same cars which were quick here will be quick at Silverstone but we’ve just got to where we were at the start of the year. How the car felt in that last race was probably the best it has felt since Snetterton.

“Since the tyre test the car’s not been there. Handling-wise it’s been really strong but we’ve been hampered by the performance.

“There are a lot of things to chew over. We want to put this weekend behind us and forget it ever happened.”