Tom Ingram: “We made our performance count”

Tom Ingram was left more than satisfied following the opening rounds of the British Touring Car Championship at Donington Park after tallying a hat-trick of second place finishes.

The EXCELR8 driver was the driver to beat across both free practice sessions but falling out of sync on his qualifying run left him lining up in third on the grid for the first of Sunday’s three contests.

Shadowing Ash Sutton in races one and two, the Hyundai driver then held off Sutton to follow team-mate Tom Chilton to the chequered flag in the reverse grid bout.

Now sitting second in the standings after his podium haul, the 2022 champion was pleased to have made the performance of his i30 N count, however he’s well aware that others will no doubt come to the fore in the coming rounds.

“This season will be one where you can’t adopt the kind of approach that we saw Colin Turkington take previously of always being in the top six – now we realistically need to be pushing for the podium each weekend,” said Ingram.

“It’s going to be a very competitive season, but we have started it strongly, which is ultimately what we needed to do.

“Clearly, we were very strong this weekend, as were NAPA Racing, but we know that there are others on the grid who are going to improve as the season goes on and the impact of the new turbo boost rules really takes effect.

“We’ve made our performance count this weekend to pick up three strong results, and I’m really pleased for Tom to get the win as he deserved it.”