Tom Ingram aiming for ‘managed risk’ on Silverstone race day

Tom Ingram was unfazed by failing to get out of Q1 in qualifying for the British Touring Car Championship at Silverstone, admitting that things ‘could have been a lot worse’.

With the least TOCA Turbo Boost [TTB] available to him around the Silverstone National circuit, at only one second per lap, Ingram knew that qualifying was always going to be a challenge.

In the end, the Team Vertu driver fell at the first hurdle when he was knocked out of qualifying in Q1 – in part thanks to a late improvement by NAPA Racing UK’s Daniel Rowbottom – for the first time in 2025.

It ends an 11-session streak for Ingram, who had previously made it into every Q3 session since Donington Park in August 2024.

Despite that, the points leader admitted that it could have been worse for him, with title rival Ash Sutton only qualifying in 12^th, two places ahead and directly in front of Ingram on the grid.

“No problem at all, could have been a lot worse,” said Ingram to TouringCars.Net. “We expected that was probably going to be the case around here – Ash and I being close to each other. Obviously, that’s not to say we’re not disappointed, but at the same time, it could have been a lot worse.

“The weather didn’t help us either. We opted for a setup which was too conservative thinking the rain was going to come in, which it then never did, so we probably gave away a little bit of performance to factoring in that it was going to be wet which then never came to fruition.”

Ingram said that even if he had made it into Q2 then he thinks he could only have gone marginally faster.

“I think we could have found another tenth and a half to two tenths – not enough to challenge for pole, but then the rain came down anyway.

“Ultimately, we can only control what we can control.”

The 2022 champion described his approach to race day as being about ‘managed risk’.

“There are two schools of thought – there’s maximum attack and try and make some progress forward, because obviously we know Ash will be on full attack as well.

“But at the same time, we can’t afford to be too risk-heavy because we don’t want to get caught up in any issues, so managed risk is definitely the aim of tomorrow.”