Tom Ingram ‘super relaxed’ after ‘solid’ Silverstone weekend

Tom Ingram is ‘super relaxed’ after the Silverstone round of the British Touring Car Championship, meaning the Team Vertu driver will head into the season finale with a points advantage for the first-ever time.

Ingram has never before gone into the deciding round of the BTCC ahead in the standings, but after a seventh, win and a fifth at Silverstone, he goes to Brands Hatch in October with a 33-point lead over rival Ash Sutton.

The 2022 champion played a tactical game on Sunday, having qualified down in 14^th for the opening race due to a lack of TOCA Turbo Boost – thanks to leading the championship going into the weekend.

Making up five places in the opening race, Ingram got ahead of Sutton lap four and ended up taking the chequered flag in seventh as the best-placed driver on the less favourable medium-compound tyre.

Bolting on the faster soft tyre for race two and much more boost, Ingram was up to third on the opening lap, before fighting past leader Jake Hill for the lead three laps later.

He went on to claim his 38^th BTCC win ahead of Sutton and further boost his points advantage. However, that was reduced in the final race of the day, as Ingram had to start from 12^th on the reverse-grid with the lowest boost and back on the medium tyre, resulting in him taking fifth.

“That was a nice solid weekend, really,” said Ingram to TouringCars.Net. “Minimal damage in terms of getting involved in things and we got as many points out of it as we could have done. I think we played a blinder.

“We knew we were going to struggle with a lack of TTB, so it was a case of managed aggression in the first race and picking our battles wisely, then trying to extract as many points as we could in the second race with the soft tyre advantage.

“In the third race it was like playing a high-speed game of chess, watching what Ash was doing. We knew we were going to give away points in the last race, so it was a case of minimising that loss.

“For me, in that scenario we had to guarantee ourselves a great result and for me the easiest way to guarantee a great result was to give ourselves a double advantage; we know that we are super strong on a soft tyre, and it’s very rare that you get the opportunity to have 11 laps of boost as well, so we knew that we had to try and grab that and get as many as we can out of it.”

Having never previously held a points advantage going into a season finale meeting before, Ingram admits he is feeling relaxed ahead of next month’s showdown.

“I’ve never led going into the finals day, so this is a first for me. I feel fairly relaxed, to be honest with you, it’s a nice place to be.

“We can’t rest on our laurels – we know that whilst it can go very right it can also go very wrong, so we’ve got to make sure that we do the same weekend as we’ve had here, pick our battles wisely and score the points when we’re there.

“I feel super relaxed. I feel relieved that we’ve had a good weekend here, but I genuinely feel super relaxed going into Brands knowing with the fact we’ve got a good car underneath us it’s just a case of having a sensible weekend.

“This season I feel I’ve driven better than I’ve ever driven. Everything has just come together at the right time, the car has been fantastic and I’ve driven really well.

“The whole thing has come together, so I feel really pleased with how it has gone.”