Tom Ingram pleased with early pace

Tom Ingram said he was pleased to set the early pace ahead of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship season opener at Brands Hatch, despite a mid-session scare with his Speedworks-run Toyota.

The 22-year-old caused the first red flag of the new season when he was forced to bring his car to a halt mid-way through the session with a loose wheel, with marshals recovering the car to the pits before he rejoined.

Quickly back into his stride, Ingram vaulted to the top of the times with a lap just 0.020secs off Matt Neal’s 2011 qualifying lap record – outpacing the Honda driver by just 0.087secs in the process.

It marked the second successive season in which Ingram has topped the times in the first practice session of the year.

“It’s nice to be the first driver to top a session again this season, but its only first practice so we shouldn’t get too excited,” he said. “The car felt good but we were just trying out a few different things and working on set-up, as I’m sure everyone else was doing as well.

“There was a bit of scare when I left the pits and there was an issue with a wheel-nut, so I just parked the car and let them recover me back to the pits.

“It wasn’t ideal, but it didn’t interfere much with our programme and I’d rather have that kind of problem now than in qualifying later on or in the races tomorrow.”