Tom Ingram was pleased to qualify in fourth for the opening British Touring Car Championship race at Croft, with the Excelr8 Motorsport driver aiming for a consistent race day.
Ingram put his Hyundai within a tenth of a second of pole on Saturday, and given that he had just 1.5 seconds of hybrid, he was pleased with the result.
“I missed my best by two tenths which would have put us on pole, but at the same time I think fourth is a good place given where we were with the amount of [hybrid] deployment,” Ingram told TouringCars.Net. “I don’t think the deployment is worth that much, maybe two tenths at most.
“I’m pleased with our position – we’re in a good place going into tomorrow, not necessarily to carry on where we left off at Oulton because I think that was pretty crazy, but to just be consistent. Three thirds would be fantastic.”
Ingram pointed to the fact that because the hybrid situation means all cars run at the same weight, teams can develop all of their cars in the same manner.
At Excelr8 Motorsport, Ingram believes that situation has helped them to get three cars into the top ten and all four cars in the top 15.
“The way we are now, it means we can turn up fast every weekend and focus on the car. But what it also means – and this weekend it’s quite apparent –we’ve been able to focus on our own thing and all four cars have been the same.
“Historically my car was totally different because I was carrying so much weight, so it had to be a completely different setup and it meant that no one else in the team benefitted.
“We’ll start to see touring cars becoming faster, because we can develop them. There’s a little bit of hybrid, but because we’re all developing these cars over the course of a season, it helps everyone.”
The 22-time race winner also feels the balance between different drivetrain configurations is in a good place, which will result in a strong race on Sunday.
“I think the balance in the field is pretty good at the moment. I don’t think the rear-wheel drive cars can complain about the front-wheel drive cars, and vice versa.
“I think we’re all fairly equally matched – you’ve only got to look at the top four in qualifying which are all within a tenth.
“Colin [Turkington] is going to be fast. He’s going to be good off the line and he’s going to have the race pace over us, being realistic, as it’s a rear-wheel drive car so it will be a better race car over the distance.
“And he’s got a little bit more deployment, which I think makes a bigger effect in the race than it does in qualifying.
“You’ve got a few of us in the mix there that are all fairly equally matched so it should be pretty good.
“I don’t necessarily think there’s going to be a lot of drama because we’re all going to want to finish, but I think it should be a fairly strong race at least.”