Tom Ingram happy to be in contention ahead of Corolla debut

Tom Ingram was happy to find himself “in the mix” after snaring a top ten place on the grid for the BTCC season opener at Brands Hatch.

The Speedworks driver heads into 2019 driving one of the two all-new cars on the grid in the Toyota Corolla and secured the seventh best time in a chaotic session that was affected by poor weather conditions and was hit by three red flags.

Whilst he was demoted back a place on the grid after Andrew Jordan was moved up to fourth when a laptime deleted in error was reinstated, Ingram still finds himself in a strong position going into the first race for the new car.

“We’d not run the Toyota in the wet before, and also hadn’t run on the new Dunlop wet tyre so we had to kill two birds with one stone in that session,” he said. “With that in mind, I’m really happy. It sounds a bit weird to say that when we’re going to be starting where we are, but I think we’ve done a solid job for our first qualifying session.

“We have said all along that the opening half of the year we just want to be in the mix and that we’ll come strong as the season goes on – so that’s the approach I’m taking going into race day.

“We’re learning all the time with the car and I’m pleased with how the whole team is working. Here’s to a strong race day.”