Tom Ingram was surprised to see the West Surrey Racing drivers battling as hard as they did in the opening British Touring Car Championship race at Donington Park, which opened the door for him to claim the win.
Ingram qualified his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai in fourth for the opening encounter, but he dropped to fifth briefly during the opening lap as George Gamble’s BMW got through.
Having re-taken the place further around the lap, Ingram was in third on the second lap when the duelling BMWs of Jake Hill and Colin Turkington held each other up and allowed him to get in the mix.
At Coppice on lap two, Hill and Turkington’s battle opened the door for Ingram and he sailed into the lead, which he wouldn’t lose thereafter, despite having to manage a safety car phase shortly after moving to the front.
“They made it a little bit easier for me,” said a delighted Ingram to TouringCars.Net. “We knew that first lap was going to be fairly spicy with some quick people around me.
“I dropped to fifth off the start with the rear-wheel drive cars getting the advantage over me against Gamble. I managed to hold him off around the outside for Turn One, and then I just got my head down.
“I had Ash [Sutton] in front of me and I had to try and pass Ash as quick as possible because I knew he was obviously going to be racey as well. I managed to get Ash and then just got my head down and tried to close down on the guys ahead.
“They were starting to battle fairly aggressively fairly early on, so that made my life a little bit easier. I’m surprised they battled as hard as they did.
“From that perspective, I honestly thought that Dick [Bennetts, WSR Team Principal] was going to be shouting down the radio telling them to stop it, because that’s what brought me into the race. Had it not been for that, personally I think they had the pace to be able to pull away, but they tripped themselves over by battling.
“I don’t necessarily think we are the quickest car out there; I think we were clever with how we played the race and managed to get them early on, and that was key to it.”
Ingram played down the significance of the hybrid system in his first win of the BTCC’s new era.
“I think we are all using [the hybrid] in the same places – we’re all clever enough to work out where to and where not to use it.
“Any of the top drivers have worked out where to be with it, so from that perspective I don’t think it’s why we won the race, because everyone will have been deploying at the same points.
“The first race was a piece of piss because everyone had the same [hybrid]. Now this is where it starts to get a little bit tricky.”