Tom Ingram: “I was having the time of my life”

Tom Ingram was left almost speechless after scoring his first ever BTCC podium in the final race at Rockingham Motor Speedway.

The Speedworks driver won pole position in the reverse grid draw, giving him the best opportunity of the season so far to make the trip on to the rostrum.

“I don’t think over the moon really does it justice,” exclaimed a visibly emotional Ingram to TouringCarTimes. “To finally get it is a big weight off my shoulders. The next one’s the win! But to get second place, I’m super proud.”

Leading from the start, Ingram put in one of the most impressive drives of the season pulling out a small gap on the field before the Safety Car neutralised the race. With the field bunched up, Ingram then found himself holding firm against seasoned veteran Jason Plato.

The Team BMR driver was favouring a move on Ingram at Deene Hairpin, eventually finding a way past only to find his Volkswagen CC going side-by-side with the Toyota Avensis for the next few corners, with Ingram coming out on top and retaking the lead at Gracelands.

“I was trying everything, I always knew that [getting reverse grid pole] was my best chance to get a podium of any we’ve had so far. It goes some way to show the amount of respect between the two of us, he could easily have nerfed me out the way for the sake of getting the win, and he didn’t do it at all, he played very very fairly and I like to think I played just as fair. When racing with the best that’s what you expect, I could happily have done that all day long, I was driving around having the time of my life more than anything else.”

A couple of laps later, Plato made his move once again, this time making it stick. Despite yet more valiant driving from Ingram, it wasn’t to be and had to settle for a highly popular second at the line, impressing many, none less than race winner Plato.

“I was fortunate enough to work with Tom for a couple of years in my sponsorship program the KX Akademy so we’ve invested a lot of time in mentoring him, he’s a world class driver, he’s such a talented lad,” Plato told TouringCarTimes. “I’m not going to go soft because I want to win every race but he drove brilliantly, he would’ve been a worthy winner in that race.”

Ingram, who has shown impressive Saturday pace all season long but often come up short on Sunday, will now be hoping the team can keep the momentum going with their first podium and bring home more silverware from the final six races.

“We’ve showed we’ve got some fantastic pace,” he said. “Yeah we’ve gotta keep this going for the rest of the year and see how much more we can get.”