Stockport’s Ingram in rollercoaster at BTCC

Stockport’s Tom Ingram, driving with the Bredbury based Speedworks team, had a rollercoaster ride of a weekend in the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship at Knockhill.

The three-part meeting saw Tom ran well throughout Free Practice, claiming second in FP2 by just seven-thousandths of a second.

Speaking to Toyota’s blog he said; “I’m really happy. The car is strong and we’ve made a few positive changes. The pace is some way off last year’s, though, so we expect it to be quicker still this afternoon. We need to find a chunk of time – we know where we need to – as we still believe the rear-wheel drive cars will be very fast in qualifying.

“We’ve been saying all year that it’s about the weekend as a whole,” he continued. “It’s no good setting the pace in practice if you don’t follow it up in the races. So it’s important we keep improving.”

The Toyota Avensis racer took an Independent win in Race One after claiming second on the grid for the opening round of the weekend, just two-hundredths of a second off the pace of works’ Subaru racer, and former BTCC Champion, Jason Plato – who was also celebrating his 500th start in the BTCC. 

Race Two didn’t go according to plan as a string of clashes with fellow drivers left Ingram with no option but to retire from the Race as a result of accident damage with two laps remaining. The Race was won outright by teammate Matt Heal in the Speedworks’ Honda.   

With it all to do in Race Three, Ingram climbed from twenty-fifth on the grid to finish in twelfth at the flag, seventh in the Independents. Fellow Independents Championship runner Mat Jackson [Ford] claimed the win for Motorbase, also taking his second ‘Indy’ win of the day, thus leap-frogging Ingram in to second in the standings.

Tom now sits in tenth spot in the overall Championship standings, and third in the Independents Trophy. Speedworks sit seventh in the HiQ Teams Championship, and second in the Independents Team Trophy with nine races remaining.

The BTCC’s next stop is Rockingham in Northamptonshire on the 28th August.