Tom Ingram hailed his second British Touring Car Championship title as ‘more special’ than his first, citing both personal challenges and competitive improvements as to why.
Ingram enjoyed his strongest-ever season in the BTCC in 2025 – scoring more points, winning more races and standing on the podium more times than ever before – on his way to a second BTCC drivers’ title.
The 32-year-old had to do that amongst the backdrop of losing his mum recently, but Ingram put in a determined focus and delivered the title in a spectacular finale at Brands Hatch.
In a tight qualifying session on Saturday, Ingram crucially qualified four places ahead of title rival Ash Sutton in seventh, despite having just one second of TOCA Turbo Boost [TTB], giving him the advantage ahead of race day.
He then went on to gain two places in Sunday’s opening race to finish fifth, and by again ending up ahead of Sutton, Ingram edged ever closer to the title.
He then delivered that title in sensational form in race two, powering to his seventh victory of the season after bolting on the faster soft tyre whilst also benefitting from more laps of TTB than in race one.
Having by now secured the title, Ingram encored with sixth in the season finale, concluding his best season-yet in the BTCC with a 34-point winning margin in the drivers’ championship standings.
“It’s pretty blood special, to be honest with you,” said Ingram to TouringCars.Net immediately after Sunday’s racing. “I didn’t really know what to expect coming into the final weekend, because there were so many unknowns: general pressures, unknowns, finale jitters, nerves, weather; everything.”
“All the messages were ‘just bring it back, don’t mess up now’ and it was a level of pressure that I’d not really expected – of the ‘don’t make a mistake’ pressure rather than the ‘crack on with it’ pressure. I think I had a good poker face for most of the weekend!
“I was feeling the pressure and I was feeling the nerves, but once you’re in the car and you’re strapped in and cracking on, you tend to forget it. Thankfully I’m fairly thick [skinned] anyway, so once I get going, I don’t really think about too much else.
“The first race was perfect, I couldn’t really have asked for it to go any more to plan. It was just a sensible, clean, easy, out-of-trouble race with Ash behind which secured us an easier race two.
“It took the pressure away, which is ideal and it really worked out spot on.
“In race two, we went for the same strategy as we did at Silverstone – get the first race out of the way, get a load of boost in the car and almost guarantee a good result in race two.
“Honestly, you fire some boost into this thing, put on some soft tyres, and it’s an honour to drive. It really is in a world of its own.”
After securing the title with a race to spare, Ingram admitted that his 2025 triumph felt even more special than his first title in 2022.
“This one feels more special. The first one felt like we came into the weekend as the underdogs and pulled it off, but this year we have left no stone unturned.
“I take more satisfaction out of this one. We won it in 2022 and we came back in 2023 and NAPA Racing dominated. It changes the way you think – that 2023 season really changes what you have to look at and the work ethic that goes into it.
“I take more satisfaction that we turned NAPA domination in 2023 into having a very good car in 2024 and going another step further in 2025.
“Everyone has a very short memory as to the performance we had only two years ago in 2023 against the NAPA cars. To have overturned that – from the work of Tom [Chilton], Adam [Morgan], Senna [Proctor] and myself as well as all our engineers, mechanics and technicians – everybody that’s been involved – we’ve created an absolute monster of a touring car that is beyond a pleasure to drive. It’s been a great thing.”
The now two-time BTCC champion admits that he needs to take a short break after an intense season both on-and-off the track.
“It’s been brutal this year. I’ve put absolutely everything into it physically, emotionally, everything. I feel completely drained by it.
“But I’m pleased to have got to the end of the year for no other reason than to be able to stop, take our foot off the gas for a handful of weeks, because it has been incredibly full-on.
“It’s been seven days a week trying to make sure we are absolutely at the front. The thing I love is people are tuning in on a Sunday and saying ‘they’ve got loads of straight-line speed’. If they only knew what made this car fast, they would be very surprised!”
Team Vertu is already planning a winter test programme ahead of the 2026 season, with on-track action getting underway in November.
“There’s always more that this car can still do – we’ve never maxed it out. I still think there’s a chunk of time we can find in this thing.
“A plan is already in action. We start [testing] in November, so the plan will be to absolutely maximise everything else. All of our other little weak points that we’ve maybe lacked a little bit of performance in we’re already working on those and making our good points even better.”