Hughes Safety Showers backed Ingram remains in 12th place in the overall BTCC Championship 2015 and 5th place in the Independents Trophy, whilst the Hughes/Speedworks Team sits 5th in the Independents Team Trophy after a frustrating weekend in Scotland.
Left: Ingram before frustrations set in at Knockhill
The Knockhill circuit in Dumfermine was the latest stop on the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship journey for Tom Ingram at the wheel of the Team’s Toyota Avensis where, although Ingram set competitive times during Free Practice – in the region of five tenths of a second off the fastest times throughout, Tom claimed 12th on the grid for the first of three races the following day.
But Race 1 …
… ended for Ingram when a clutch problem put paid to any hope of points, leading to retirement on lap 12 of the 25 lap encounter.
Ingram started Race 2 …
… from 25th on the grid as a result, and showed the reason he’s a BRDC Superstar, climbing to 12th place at the flag, but being demoted to 13th after a 1.8 second penalty following his move around former Clio Cup Champion Dave Newsham.
The Race 2 penalty had a knock on in to Race 3 …
… the BTCC operates a ‘three strike’ system, of which Tom had just received his third. This demoted him to last, 27th on the grid. Though Ingram, only in his second year of BTCC racing, fought spiritedly to 16th place overall, only narrowly missing out on a points position by one place.
Exclaimed Tom:
“Well that was a frustrating weekend!”
“At some point our luck needs to change. Again we were really quick in the races, but nothing fell our way. Thanks very much for the hard work by the Speedworks boys over the weekend. Let’s look forward now to Rockingham.”
Elsewhere there were wins for BMW driver Rob Collard, and Honda works racers Gordon Shedden and Matt Neal, the latter taking the top spot on the last race of the day from former Speedworks racer Adam Morgan [Merc].
Ingram is next in action as the BTCC moves on to Rockingham, Northamptonshire on 6th September.
Photo credit: Jakob Ebrey Photography