![Tom Ingram, Team VERTU [EXCELR8 Motorsport], Hyundai i30 N Fastback NGTC](https://www.touringcars.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Tom-Ingram-1.jpg "Photo: Pat Cranham")
Tom Ingram admitted it had been ‘a hard pill to swallow’ after being stripped of two race victories in the British Touring Car Championship at Donington Park, despite demonstrating pace-setting performance.
Ingram topped Saturday’s sole practice session, before then emerging as the fastest driver in the BTCC’s new qualifying format in the afternoon.
The Team VERTU driver duly lined up at the front for the new qualifying race, and he went on to take the chequered flag in first – only for a five-second penalty applied for being out of position at the start demoting Ingram to second – just 0.024 seconds shy of the win.
Nonetheless, that gave Ingram a solid start to the season and he started from second for Sunday’s first ‘proper’ race.
Immediately seizing the lead, Ingram was over a second and a half clear by the end of the opening lap, and went on to win by a second and a half from Mikey Doble – or so he thought.
For Ingram was later excluded from the result for a technical infringement – an overboost – and stripped of his win, whilst also having to start from last for race two.
Things went from bad to worse when an alternator issue sidelined Ingram before the start of the second race, resulting in a second consecutive non-score.
With faster soft tyres bolted on for race three, Ingram produced a charismatic drive from the back of the grid to claim second by the chequered flag, the need to fight his way forward meaning that when he finally got into second on lap 15 there were only three laps – and insufficient time – for him to close down the four-second deficit to long-time rival Ash Sutton.
Ingram heads to the second event of the year eighth overall in the drivers’ championship standings and with a healthy allocation of TOCA Turbo Boost [TTB] going into the event.
“The start of a new season is always really exciting, and I arrived at Donington feeling very relaxed,” said Ingram. “It was incredibly close in qualifying, with everybody on the same TTB for the only time all year, and the refreshed Saturday format means you need to be mindful of looking after everything for the ‘Race to Pole’, which feels quite counter-intuitive in a qualifying session!
“There was obviously a little bit of a mess-up in terms of parking on the grid; I always give myself a margin for error in that respect, but clearly it wasn’t quite enough.
“I got the call over the radio fairly early on that I had a penalty incoming, so I just had to get my head down and try to build as much of a gap as I could and we so very nearly overturned it.
“To still finish second in the circumstances put us in a good place for Sunday’s first race, which went really well on-track, but it subsequently transpired that there had been a glitch with the new TTB system and for some reason, it hadn’t worked as it should have done in my car.
“There was no performance gain whatsoever, so that was really tough to take, but we fell outside of the regulations so that was that – and then the alternator decided to stop alternating before the start of race two!
“From there, we had to try to recover whatever we could from race three to make sure we got something out of the weekend.
“It was hard work, starting so far back and knowing I needed to take some risks but also knowing I couldn’t afford another non-score after losing so many points earlier in the day, meaning it was imperative to avoid doing anything reckless or getting caught up in any incidents.
“The car felt phenomenal and I was really pumped-up, and it was full-on the whole way through. I left absolutely nothing on the table – I don’t think I’ve ever given the tyres such a hard workout before and I probably came perilously close to picking up a track limits penalty, but I just had to keep cracking on.
“I used the boost where I needed to and picked my battles, and while I ultimately lost too much time fighting through the pack to be able to challenge for the win, I thoroughly enjoyed myself!
“It was a fairly tricky weekend overall – being so fast and winning two races on the road but not getting to keep either of them was a hard pill to swallow – but to end it back on the podium was positive.
“We’ll also be in a fairly decent position TTB-wise now going to Brands Hatch, where we’ll look to secure the kind of results we should have come away with from Donington Park.”