Tom Ingram: “It’s been a really difficult weekend”
Tom Ingram has said he’s focused on ending the season strongly after losing further ground to Ash Sutton in the British Touring Car Championship standings at Donington Park GP this past weekend.
The EXCELR8 driver endured a challenging outing at the Leicestershire venue which resulted in Sutton ultimately extending his advantage to 98 points with just three events now left to run.
Ingram started the weekend on the front foot by topping practice on Saturday morning however from there the Hyundai driver was unable to make a proper impression towards the front of the field.
Eighth in the ‘Race To Pole’ meant that the reigning champion started Sunday’s trio of races from the fourth row, and he would take the chequered flag in a stop-start opener after electing to run the hard tyre.
Switching to the more preferable medium compound in race two, the two-time title winner charged onto the podium before then closing out his weekend with a second ninth-place finish.
“It’s been a really difficult weekend and I was certainly hoping to come away from Donington Park GP with a lot more than we have given our recent record,” said Ingram.
“We were scratching our heads a bit after qualifying because the car felt good but just didn’t have pace, although we were able to gain ground in the qualifying race itself.
“Running the hard tyre in race one should have opened the door for strong results in races two and three but we just lacking that last little bit of pace and in race two, even though I held back some of my TTB, I couldn’t make the most of it despite the car feeling really nice and doing what I asked it to do.
“The contact with Ash in race three then left us vulnerable to people with more boost than we had, and it’s also more difficult to be in the pack and not able to benefit from clear air.
“All we can do is continue to push hard over the remaining three rounds to score as many points as possible, and look to end the season strongly – starting in a few weeks at Croft.”
