Tom Ingram delighted with first Corolla pole

Tom Ingram admitted he was delighted to secure his first pole position with the Toyota Corolla at Snetterton, reflecting that the result was more gratifying that his victory at Donington Park earlier in the year.

The Speedworks driver produced a stunning performance in qualifying to beat the Honda of Dan Cammish to pole, with the pair split by just 0.002s in a closely-matched battle for top spot on the grid.

It gave Ingram his first pole position since 2016, whilst it was also the first pole for a Toyota Corolla since Win Percy at Oulton Park back in 1982.

“As a driver you have to be confident you can get pole and win races and if you don’t feel like that, you’re not in a good place,” he said. “I always want to be on pole and want to win, and after the recent test, we’ve been able to put it on the front row.

“Until now, we haven’t really had a baseline to work from, and the test came at just the right time for us. We were able to do things that we have wanted to do since we rolled the car out back in March, and a lot of little things have combined together to work for us here, as the car felt great.

“We got the win at Donington Park but that was circumstantial as we had the reverse grid, we had no weight and we were on the right tyre against people who weren’t. That was our race to lose, but to get the pole here, we had to have the car in the right place and I had to get the lap in. I think I get more gratification from that pole as we worked hard for it, and I hope it’s the start of something special.”

Ingram added that the team will now sit down to determine the ideal strategy when it comes to tyre selection for race day, when drivers will have to run all three compound of Dunlop rubber in a change to the norm.

“Everyone had to wait for qualifying before making a decisionas you don’t really know what to do until then,” he said. “Starting on pole will be different to if we were last, so we need to have a proper think about which way to go.

“It’s a cool thing as it’ll add something extra to the weekend and hopefully there will be a bit more drama – just not from our side!”