Tom Ingram enjoys ‘absolutely cracking weekend’ at Donington Park

Tom Ingram extended his British Touring Car Championship lead with a strong weekend at Donington Park, picking up a second, fourth and a victory as he continued his push for a second drivers’ title.

On Saturday, Ingram continued his form as the only driver in the field to make it into every ‘Quick Six’ session this year by putting his Team Vertu Hyundai in second on the grid for the opening race behind team-mate Tom Chilton.

Ingram then followed Chilton home for an EXCLER8 1-2 in the opening race, in which Chilton also helped him to a bonus point for leading the race at mid-distance.

Running the hard tyre in race two, the 32-year-old had been running in third until a sudden downpour at McLeans saw most of the field fall of the circuit.

The safety car was called and the race finished under yellow flags, with Ingram having fallen to fifth in the process, later gaining fourth when Chris Smiley was excluded from the result after the race.

The 2022 champion then started fifth on the grid for the final race, but was up to third by the end of the opening lap, before relieving Josh Cook of second a lap later.

That set Ingram up for a duel with long-time rival Ash Sutton, and the two champions went wheel-to-wheel for a couple of laps, before Ingram emerged in front – in part thanks to being able to run the softer medium compound tyre.

Victory over Sutton in that final race has seen Ingram extend his lead to 32 points, with only six races left to run in the 2025 campaign.

“What an absolutely cracking weekend,” said Ingram. “We were confident going to Donington that we had a good car there – we were quick around the ‘National’ layout earlier in the year – and it was nice to see that translate to the ‘GP’ loop as well.

“I think we played a blinder in qualifying. The weather never really decided what it wanted to do, which made things quite stressful, and we had to take a minimal risk approach with regards to tyre choice, because as much as it could have gone right, it could also have gone very wrong.

“In the circumstances, second was a stellar outcome – I was chuffed with that – and as Team Vertu, we really couldn’t have asked for anything better than a front row lockout.

“That put us in strong stead for Sunday, and race one similarly followed the script. We knew the start would be important, as the plan was to try to establish a gap over the rest of the field early on, to buy ourselves some breathing room so we could do a brief ‘switcheroo’ to gain me an extra point for leading a lap.

“That worked perfectly – we did what we could to score as many points as possible without Tom [Chilton] giving up a win, which I’d made it clear I didn’t want him to do. A one-two finish was a very good start to the day.

“It was obvious that there was a threat of rain in race two, but the abruptness with which it came down was crazy – I’ve honestly never seen anything like that before!

“Exiting the Old Hairpin, there was nothing at all to warn of the chaos ahead, and then all of a sudden, it was like driving into a wall of water! There was no time to react, and I just had to do my best to try to gather it all up again.

“It was a shame not to finish third, because on the hard tyre, that would have been an amazing result, but considering how it could have played out, we still scored some very solid points.

“I knew I had slightly more tyre performance than Ash in the finale, but he never makes anybody’s life easy and on the flipside, he had more TTB at his disposal than I did.

“We always race hard, lean on each other and indulge in a little bit of paint-swapping, but we also have a lot of mutual respect and both know how far we can push it.

“To win that one after such a mega battle was a great way to end the weekend. It’s a heck of a car we’ve got here – at every circuit we turn up to, in every type of weather and no matter what gets thrown at it, it’s simply fantastic.

“Going to Silverstone, which is somewhere we have done well in the past, I think we’re in a really strong place…”