Tom Ingram: “We seemed to be a magnet for drama in every race”

Tom Ingram admitted it was an uphill battle at Thruxton over the weekend but he was pleased to ultimately walk away with a second win of the season in the British Touring Car Championship.

The reigning champion arrived at the Hampshire circuit needing to make serious in-roads into the lead that four-time title winner Ash Sutton had built up in recent events; and he began working towards that by out-qualifying his main rival on Saturday.

Unfortunately for Ingram, a slight touch from Dan Cammish at the high-speed Goodwood corner on the opening lap of race one put the Hyundai driver on the back foot as he initially dropped back to ninth.

Fighting back to finish in fifth, the double champion then charged to second place in race two, only to be handed a ten-second time penalty on the final lap for exceeding track limits one too many times.

That demotion to fifth did mean that he would start race three from the front row virtue of the reverse grid draw and he duly took advantage to claim a lights-to-flag victory. Post-race he was handed a five-second time penalty for a start infringement, but he crucially kept the win.

Reflecting on the weekend, Ingram said: “Frustrating is the word, I think! Having haemorrhaged so many championship points at the beginning of the season, I went to Thruxton looking for a quiet weekend with no drama, but we seemed to be a magnet for drama in every race!

“Given the championship situation, we had no option but to adopt a full-attack mentality. The car didn’t feel great in free practice, but we worked really hard and made some fairly fundamental changes.

“Overall, the weekend didn’t yield what we wanted due to a series of unfortunate events. It felt like a bit of an uphill battle despite the pace we clearly had, but I’m pleased with the job we did, because we weren’t great in free practice yet by digging deep and putting in the hard yards, we ended up with probably the best car I’ve ever had around Thruxton.

“That’s really encouraging, and I think what we’ve learnt will similarly translate elsewhere, which bodes well for the remainder of the season. We’ll chalk this one up as a learning experience and come back stronger at Knockhill.”