It was a lacklustre weekend at Donington for the Hughes/Speedworks Motorsport outfit as Tom Ingram could only scrape a solitary top ten place at a blustery Donington Park in the latest rounds of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship.
Left: Ingram on track at Donington
Free practice at the Leicestershire circuit was all pointing in the right direction for the Stockport based squad, as former Ginetta Champ Ingram set 8th and 7th fastest times in FP1 and FP2 respectively, though Qualifying didn’t continue as well as expected, with Ingram claiming 16th place on Donington’s National layout, a little over a second off the pace off pole-setter Colin Turkington in the Team BMR VW.
RACE 1 …
Ingram finished Race One where he started it, in a pretty uneventful race under sunny skies on Sunday morning, and disappointingly only setting the 18th fastest lap meaning he’d start two places back on the Race Two grid.
RACE 2 …
Race Two saw improvement from the BRDC Superstar as he brought the Hughes Safety Showers backed Toyota Avensis home in 13th place, ahead of the Works’ entered Honda of former Champion Gordon Shedden.
RACE 3 …
Race Three was a rather more frantic affair with Ingram involved in a five way battle for some time with Shedden, Dave Newsham [Chevrolet], Martin Depper [Honda], Jeff Smith [Honda] and Rob Austin [Audi]. Ingram made up two places on the opening lap but was demoted both of them five laps later. It was only in the closing stages, with five laps remaining, that Ingram took his chances claiming three places to snatch 10th place overall at the flag.
Team Boss Christian Dick recalled:
“I’m not sure what exactly went wrong this weekend. We made a lot of progress at Brands Hatch and things seemed to be heading in the right direction.
“Tom was happy with the overall balance of the car” continued DIck, “but he suggested that there may be something wrong with the brake balance. It’s all a bit bizarre and I can’t put my finger on it. I’ll have a good look over the data in the next few days and figure it out “.
Tom drops to fifth in the Independents Championship and twelfth in the overall standings.
Elsewhere there were wins for Jason Plato [VW], Colin Turkington [VW], and Matt Neal [Honda]. Neal leads the overall standings from Turkington and Shedden.
The series now moves on to Thruxton, Hampshire, on the 9-10th May for rounds 7, 8 & 9 of the Championship.