Tom Ingram praises Hyundai balance after ‘another good weekend’

EXCELR8 Motorsport’s Tom Ingram praised the balance of his Hyundai i30 at Snetterton, describing it as ‘another good weekend’ despite crashing out of the second British Touring Car Championship race.

Ingram was a mere 0.03 seconds slower than pole-sitter Dan Cammish in qualifying, despite having ten seconds less boost per lap than his NAPA Racing UK rival on Saturday. Indeed, data shows that when red flags came out to recover Ash Sutton’s stricken car, Ingram was on an even faster lap.

In the opening race of the weekend, Ingram challenged Cammish for the lead early on, but as the race progressed and Cammish began to utilise his additional boost, Ingram turned to defending second from Sutton as he also managed a brake issue.

The 31-year-old thus took second to narrowly close the points deficit to points leader Sutton, although that gap opened up again in the second race of the day.

With the top three in race one having to start race two on the hard tyre, Ingram would have his work cut out to stay near the front. On the third lap, going through Riches, the 2022 champion made a rare error, getting sideways and making contact with the barriers on the inside as he sought to save the slide.

Forced into retirement with suspension damage, Ingram also had to start the final race from the very back of the grid as a result.

Rapid progress saw him move up 11 places on the opening lap, and by mid-distance he was up to sixth. After passing Toyota’s Ronan Pearson on lap nine, Ingram closed down the gap to NAPA’s Sam Osborne and took fourth, where he finished, having gained 21 places in the race.

His race three recovery drive means Ingram remains second overall in the drivers’ standings, 15 points adrift of Sutton – despite having yet to claim a victory in the 2025 season, something he is all too aware of, despite gushing about his car’s handling and performance this year.

“The first thing I have to say is that, once again, the car felt phenomenal all weekend – unbelievably hooked-up, doing everything I wanted it to and an absolute dream to drive,” said Ingram.

“We’re in a nice window with it and I was proper chuffed with qualifying considering our comparative lack of turbo boost. There was next-to-nothing between Dan [Cammish] and myself, and while I was more than a tenth-and-a-half up on my previous best when the red flag came out, second still put us in a really good place for race day.

“It was always going to be tough to beat Dan in race one as he had much more boost available, and I additionally lost some brake cooling early on, which left me vulnerable in the braking zones so I had to be mindful of that – particularly with Ash looming in my mirrors!

“I knew he would be planning an attack, which meant I couldn’t afford to make a mistake – if you leave so much as two millimetres of extra space, he will fill it.

“It certainly got fairly close towards the end – Ash stuck his nose in a couple of times on the last lap – but it was all good, hard touring car racing and second position was a strong result to kick the day off.

“I was pleased with that, and to have reached the milestone of 100 podiums in the BTCC is a pretty amazing achievement.

“I held my hands up to what happened in race two – that one was completely on me as I pushed too hard trying to defend my position on the hard tyres – and I went into race three determined to repay all the EXCELR8 guys and girls for doing such a great repair job.

“It was fairly full-on from the start. Stephen Jelley got fired off on the first lap and spun across the pack, and I ended up head-butting him! I thought that would be game over, but fortunately we were able to carry on – albeit carrying a bit of damage – and then we just kept on going all the way up to fourth.

“So all-in-all, aside from race two, I think we had another good weekend. The Hyundai is mega every time we turn up, which is encouraging.

“Its balance is fantastic, the front-end is like nothing else I’ve ever driven and the traction and mid-corner performance we’re getting out of it is unreal.

“Honestly, I’ve never driven a car that’s felt so good – it’s simply outrageous – so it’s kind of galling that despite scoring six podiums so far this season, we still haven’t won. We’ll have to make sure we rectify that at Thruxton…”