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Tom Ingram: “We could easily have non-scored”

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Tom Ingram admitted he was pleased to come away from the Rockingham weekend having minimised his losses to rival Colin Turkington in the race for the BTCC title.

Having gone into the weekend leading the standings, Ingram lost his place at the head of the points when a throttle issue forced him to retire from the opening race on the final lap.

That set up one of the drives of the season in race two however as Ingram stormed through the pack from the back of the field to secure a stunning third place finish – putting him back into the points lead.

Fifth place in race three behind race three meant the title fight swung back in favour of his BMW rival, although Ingram was still more than happy with the way things had panned out.

“This weekend could easily have been a non-scoring weekend which would have made life hard,” he said. “but we are still right there. Okay so we’re a few points adrift, and I think Colin will flex his muscles and get a gap at Knockhill, but we go away from here in a much better position than we could have been after what happened in race one.

“To be honest, my aim going into race two was to try and get into a position to benefit from the reverse grid and I didn’t think we could get a podium. When the team came on the radio after lap one and told me where we were, it was the encouragement I needed to do some cool things and get a big haul of points.

“We seem to be able to turn the car on in those conditions and come through the field well. The car feels sluggish when you have weight onboard, so when that weight comes out, it feels alive and like a rocketship and we showed that with the result.

“Race three was all about the points as we didn’t need to push and risk anything too much. I tried to save the tyres for a push late on but it was all about the points and making sure we stayed in the mix. Now we have to go to Knockhill having lost a bit of weight and have to try and minimise our losses to Colin at a circuit that is going to favour the BMW more than us.”