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Tom Ingram ‘well chuffed’ with unexpected fifth in first qualifying

Tom Ingram was ‘well chuffed’ to secure fifth on the grid in the first qualifying session for the British Touring Car Championship’s diamond jubilee weekend at Snetterton, with the Speedworks Motorsport driver the best placed of the top title contenders.

Ingram put his Toyota Avensis in fifth, as the best of the non-Honda drivers, despite carrying 66 kg of success ballast in the session.

He admits that the result surprised him, with points leader and title rival Colin Turkington only able to manage 15th in his BMW.

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“Considering we’ve got 66 kg of weight in the car I’m well chuffed, because we didn’t really expect it coming into that session,” said Ingram to TouringCars.Net. “I was thinking of maybe the top twelve, or the back end of the top ten, so to be lining up in P5 and to be very, very close to the guys with a massive weight difference, I’m made up with that – I’m really pleased.”

Ingram insists that he is not thinking about the points situation at all, remaining focussed on only out-qualifying his rivals.

“We’re not really fussed where we are in the points. I’m just trying to chip away at it. You’ve just got to concentrate on your own thing and do it that way.

“All I’m looking at is that we’ve out-qualified them [title rivals] which is exactly what we’ve done. We’ve done the best job we can, the rest of it will be what it will be.”

Ingram believes that he stands a strong chance of fighting for pole in the afternoon’s second, 15-minute, qualifying session, with the 24-year-old among those standing to gain the most from the front-runners when the ballast is removed.

“If anything, our car has been worse over a qualifying performance. It comes into its own in a race distance, so that’s where I’m comfortable we can make the gap up.

“The car is obviously working really, really well at the minute with the weight, so the other guys won’t take that much out, so their car will probably be very similar.

“They might go a couple of tenths quicker, but hopefully our jump can be greater. We’ve got to look at a few things and try and work out how the balance of the car is going to be when you take the weight out.”

Even though Ingram is in a strong position to gain more time in second qualifying, he believes that the most important session to deliver in was the first qualifying session.

“For me the first one is the most important, because it’s for two races. Yes, you can have a bad one in the second qualifying session and maybe make it back [over the double race distance], but they’re both as important as each other really.

“What will be will be – we can only try our best.”

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