Tom Ingram canters to race one victory at Oulton Park

Tom Ingram scored a comfortable victory in the opening British Touring Car Championship race of the weekend at Oulton Park, with Dan Cammish and Chris Smiley completing the podium.

Ingram made a good start, with Cammish immediately inside Smiley for second, with the Restart Racing driver then also losing out to Ash Sutton through Cascades as the NAPA Racing UK driver went around the outside.

The safety car was called on lap two when Stephen Jelley and Sam Osborne made contact exiting the Island hairpin, after Jelley had cut to the inside exiting the corner and Osborne appeared unaware, his Ford ending up being turned into the barriers but able to continue.

Racing resumed on lap five and Ingram quickly scampered clear at the front, extending his advantage over Cammish to almost three seconds within three laps.

The Team Vertu driver then managed the gap for the duration of the race, ultimately winning by over five seconds as Cammish faded late in the race.

Sutton held third for most of the race, but on the final lap ceded to Smiley, in what appeared to be a strategic decision to avoid having to use the hard tyre in race two.

Smiley thus completed the podium, the Northern Irishman scoring his first BTCC podium in five years in the process.

Sutton was fourth, narrowly ahead of the Team Vertu duo of Tom Chilton and Adam Morgan in fifth and sixth respectively, Chilton having passed his team-mate at two thirds distance with a neat outside-to-inside switchback at the chicane.

Laser Tools Racing’s Jake Hill gained six places to battle to seventh, including passing Team Vertu’s Senna Proctor for the place three laps from the finish with a clean dive at Lodge Corner.

Proctor was eighth, with the top ten completed by One Motorsport’s Josh Cook and Toyota’s James Dorlin. The latter two had a scrappy race, which included hair-raising contact through Deer Leap on the approach to the pitlane.

WSR’s Charles Rainford was 11^th, ahead of Restart Racing’s Daniel Lloyd in 12^th, the latter making impressive progress from the back of the grid following his exclusion from qualifying when damage to his car’s exhaust system caused him to fail the ride height checks.

Toyota’s Árón Taylor-Smith was 13^th, ahead of WSR’s Daryl DeLeon in 14^th. However, DeLeon had made contact with Taylor-Smith at the hairpin on lap 11, causing the Toyota to bounce sideways into the innocent Aiden Moffat, who spun and lost four places as a result.

NAPA Racing UK’s Daniel Rowbottom was 15^th and the best of the four drivers who elected to run the hard compound tyre.

Un-Limited Motorsport’s Dexter Patterson and Max Hall were the only retirements of the race, the two team-mates coming to blows going into the chicane on the fifth lap which broke Hall’s left-rear suspension.

Race three is scheduled to get underway at 14:40 BST.

Race result

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	BEST	GD
1	80	M		Tom INGRAM	Team Vertu	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	16	23:59.449	1:24.052	1
2	27	M		Dan CAMMISH	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	16	5.490	1:24.450	3
3	22	I		Chris SMILEY	Restart Racing	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	16	6.355	1:24.891	2
4	116	M		Ashley SUTTON	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	16	6.721	1:24.870	4
5	3	M		Tom CHILTON	Team Vertu	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	16	7.016	1:24.932	7
6	33	M		Adam MORGAN	Team Vertu	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	16	7.775	1:25.218	6
7	1	M		Jake HILL	Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	16	7.789	1:25.019	13
8	18	M		Senna PROCTOR	Team Vertu	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	16	9.749	1:25.093	10
9	66	I		Josh COOK	One Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R	16	13.083	1:25.190	8
10	132	M		James DORLIN	TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK with IAA	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	16	14.060	1:25.203	5
11	99	M		Charles RAINFORD	LKQ Euro Car Parts Racing with WSR	BMW 330i M Sport	16	14.552	1:25.344	9
12	123	I		Daniel LLOYD	Restart Racing	Hyundai i30 N Fastback	16	14.894	1:25.099	24
13	40	M		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK with IAA	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	16	19.934	1:25.804	12
14	2	M		Daryl DELEON	WSR	BMW 330i M Sport	16	19.948	1:25.668	16
15	32	M		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	16	21.575	1:26.189	15
16	16	M		Aiden MOFFAT	LKQ Euro Car Parts Racing with WSR	BMW 330i M Sport	16	23.637	1:25.779	18
17	52	M		Gordon SHEDDEN	TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK with IAA	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	16	26.260	1:26.196	25
18	88	I		Mikey DOBLE	Motor Parts Direct with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	16	27.600	1:26.604	11
19	28	I		Nicolas HAMILTON	Powder Monkey Brewing Co with Esidock	CUPRA Leon	16	31.602	1:26.163	23
20	77	M		Sam OSBORNE	NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus ST	16	31.907	1:26.210	14
21	12	I		Stephen JELLEY	One Motorsport	Honda Civic Type-R	16	34.093	1:25.470	19
22	50	I		Nick HALSTEAD	Motor Parts Direct with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	16	51.113	1:27.002	22
23	26	M		Finn LESLIE	TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK with IAA	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	14	+ 2 LAPS	1:25.911	21
R	17	I		Dexter PATTERSON	ROKiT Racing with Un-Limited Motorsport	CUPRA Leon	5	DNF	1:34.194	17
R	93	I		Max HALL	ROKiT Racing with Un-Limited Motorsport	CUPRA Leon	5	DNF	1:34.532	20