Tom Ingram: “That’s exactly what we needed”

Tom Ingram was delighted to get a consistent race weekend under his belt at Oulton Park after three trying weekends at the start of his 2016 campaign.

A recurring theme had become apparent in the first three weekends of Ingram’s season, scoring a podium in race one before failing to score in races two or three, a theme Ingram knew he had to get rid of sooner rather than later.

Oulton Park proved more agreeable for the Speedworks Motorsport driver, taking a trio of top five results to cement his reputation as one to watch for the future of the BTCC.

“That’s exactly what we needed,” Ingram told TouringCarTimes. “We knew that we had some qualifying pace but we couldn’t turn that into race pace as well. The car was good, I don’t think we had the pace to be on the podium, but three top five finishes we can be fairly happy with.”

Ingram qualified fourth in a confusing session which saw some top names struggle to get on the pace, before finishing fifth in races one and two. Race three saw Ingram defend heavily against Josh Cook to try and hold on to a potential podium result.

A coming together with Cook on the final corner allowed Team BMR’s Jason Plato to dive around the outside of both cars and take the final podium spot, with Ingram holding on to fourth and Cook having to settle for fifth.

“We were running the soft tyre so we knew that we were going to be fairly slow at the end,” he explained. “To be honest we never really had the pace all the way throughout and try and hold onto every position that we could.

I saw Jason had a better run and went to the outside and I had next to no brakes and next to no tyres so, I thought there’s no point fighting and got a whack up the back which sent me in to him so I went up and said sorry, just one of those things.”

The drama didn’t end at the chequered flag, however, where it appeared that the Toyota Avensis driver tried to force Cook off the road at the first corner, despite the race being over.

“There’s absolutely nothing malicious in it, just an honest mistake,” Ingram admitted. “I’ve had a call over the comms to pick up rubber so I’ve moved over to pick some up and obviously Josh was there. Everyone’s making a thing of it and there was nothing malicious with it in the slightest.”

The series moves quickly on to Croft, with just two weeks until the next round at Croft in North Yorkshire, a circuit Ingram feels he could continue his strong form.

“I’ve always enjoyed Croft, everything I’ve driven there in the past has gone well, I love the place and hopefully we can have another good weekend there.”