Tom Ingram was bullish about his gamble to run the slick tyre in the final British Touring Car Championship race at Croft, despite going from third on the grid to 16th at the chequered flag after the circuit failed to dry as quickly as he expected.
Ingram had been one of a handful of drivers to take the risk in switching to slick rubber, after a heavy rain shower hit the North Yorkshire circuit just before the final race.
With the circuit still wet but under full sunshine, Ingram took the gamble that a dry line would emerge much quicker than it did, and the Toyota driver fell down the order in the first few laps as he struggled for grip.
His race only came alive after lap 11, by which stage he was running in 21st and over 20 seconds off the leader, meaning that by the end of the race the most Ingram could gain was a 16th place finish.
Despite missing out on the points, Ingram insisted he would do the same again in similar circumstances.
“It was awesome fun and I’d do the same thing again,” said Ingram to TouringCars.Net. “It was circumstantial as much as anything else – it could so easily have worked as much as it didn’t work.
“We were probably five minutes, maybe ten, away from it [succeeding], but I’d do the same thing again.
“It didn’t work out for us, but had we had another lap behind the safety car, [it could have worked] and I would have done the same thing again.
“We’ve come away from meetings enough times wondering what could have happened. I’m going to go to bed knowing that my head’s in the right place and I made a decision – it was my call. It was difficult to take that it didn’t work, but it could just have easily worked.
“It probably took longer than it expected for it to dry. We went out on the way to the grid on full wets and saw dry patches.
“Why wouldn’t you try, when it’s 25 degrees track temperature, bright sunshine and not many clouds in the sky and plenty of wind, why wouldn’t you take a risk and potentially go onto slicks?
“Obviously, it didn’t work but for me the risk was worth it, and we thought what we would get back from it would be in our favour.”