Tom Ingram had ‘a blinder of a weekend’ in the British Touring Car Championship at Croft, with a win, a podium and a top ten finish propelling him to the top of the drivers’ championship standings.
The Team Vertu driver went into the event ten points adrift of title rival Ash Sutton, but left it eight points in front, after being the benchmark driver throughout the weekend.
Having dominated Saturday’s practice sessions, Ingram went on to claim a 12th career pole position later in the day, continuing his unbeaten run by topping all three parts of the session he took part in and beating NAPA Racing UK’s Dan Cammish to pole by just over a quarter of a second, despite having the second-lowest allocation of turbo boost at three seconds per lap.
Ingram then claimed a lights-to-flag victory in the opening race, mastering initially tricky drying conditions to win by over a second from Cammish. His success was made even sweeter by the fact that Sutton picked up a puncture, resulting in a non-score which saw Ingram catapulted to the lead of the standings.
Running the slower hard tyre in race two, the 31-year-old clung on to the lead for the opening two laps before falling back, ultimately finishing in eighth as the best-placed driver on the slower rubber.
Fortuitously, the top nine were reversed for the final race of the day, giving Ingram a front-row grid position for the finale.
Ingram went toe-to-toe with pole-sitter Aiden Moffat at the start, with early contact between the duo almost ending in disaster as he had to hold a huge slide through the first sequence of corners.
Then, in a feisty tin-top race, Ingram found himself mired in the pack battling for the lead, as Moffat drove defensively, whilst Sutton was able to sneak by and steal the lead as Ingram got caught in the battles.
When team-mate Senna Proctor made contact with Moffat at two-thirds distance, Ingram benefitted, before passing Proctor himself for second a lap later.
However, by this time he couldn’t catch Sutton, who won by just over two seconds, leaving Ingram with an eight-point advantage heading to the next event at Knockhill.
“Croft as a circuit has been good to us in the past, and it’s one I always enjoy – you can’t afford to leave anything on the table round there,” said Ingram.
“The summer break was also very positive; we worked hard on plenty of little tweaks to continue refining and optimising every aspect of our package, and I was really pleased with qualifying – the Hyundai felt superb, as it does every weekend thanks to the fantastic job done by Team Vertu.
“I honestly can’t ask for any more from this car – it’s an absolute pleasure to drive, and it just seems to work everywhere.
“That put us in great shape for Sunday, although it was fairly patchy on slick tyres in the early stages of race one.
“With the difficulty in generating heat in those conditions, the initial laps were quite lively and as the first car on-track, you’re a bit like a lamb to the slaughter and heading into the abyss, which certainly kept me on my toes!
“After that, though, it dried up surprisingly quicky – much more than I think we all expected – and the win was a great result to start the day.
“While you never want to wish misfortune upon anybody, what happened to Ash [Sutton] also did us a bit of a favour in terms of the championship and it felt like that levelled things out in a sense following our bad result at Snetterton.
“In race two, I think eighth was about as good as it was going to get – the delta between the two tyre compounds makes it akin to fighting with one arm tied behind your back – and race three was then pretty eventful and full-on throughout!
“The first few corners were sketchy, to say the least; I got a great start which gave me really good momentum and I kind of had no option but to go for it on the outside; it was a relief to come out of that relatively unscathed, as it could very easily have ended up as a non-score.
“It was obviously disappointing that Ash managed to claw back a few points on us, but fastest lap mitigated that slightly.
“The biggest takeaway is that we’re in such a lovely window with the Hyundai right now – everything I ask from it and more, it’s doing for me and it just feels awesome.
“As a driver, when you have a car underneath you that is responding in that way, you’re in a really nice headspace. Long may that continue!”