Tom Ingram turned a four-point deficit into a 21-point advantage in the hunt for the 2024 Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship at Croft last weekend (27-28 July), as a brace of hard-fought podium finishes enabled him to pull away from his pursuers in his quest to clinch a second career crown.
Despite benefitting from just three seconds of hybrid deployment – the second-lowest allocation in the high-calibre, 20-strong field, by dint of his championship position – the Team BRISTOL STREET MOTORS star maintained that stellar form to top the timesheets in both of the opening phases of qualifying. In the ‘Quick Six’ shootout, he then produced a characteristic all-out effort to secure third on the grid – a scant 0.008s adrift of a berth on the front row.
The next day, Ingram wasted no time at all in moving forward as he snatched second from Dan Cammish going through the chicane on lap one of the curtain-raising contest, maintaining position for the remainder of the bout.
Notwithstanding an impressive race-leading start on hard tyres in race two, it was always going to be a question of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’ those drivers on the softer rubber would work their way through, and the 30-year-old ceded to the inevitable on lap five. He went on to take the chequered flag fourth – best-placed of the hard tyre contingent.
From fifth on the partially-reversed grid for the day’s finale, he eventually made third place his own, never letting Cammish or race-leading team-mate Tom Chilton out of his sights.
His second visit to the rostrum in three races duly confirmed Ingram as the weekend’s top scorer and cementing his place as the new championship leader.
Tom Ingram, Driver, Team BRISTOL STREET MOTORS, said: “It was a hell of a weekend – fast and frenetic throughout. I knew we’d be really strong from a chassis perspective at Croft, but at the same time, I was conscious of the hybrid situation and with the allocation we had, I genuinely didn’t expect to be fighting for the front two rows of the grid. I think we over-performed in that respect, and while Q3 wasn’t quite perfect, I was very pleased to line up third.
“I didn’t need a second invitation to fill the gap Dan [Cammish] left open for me on the first lap in race one, and after that, I tried to match Colin [Turkington] but at a certain point, I had to admit defeat, knowing he had more hybrid available than I did. I was also mindful of needing to be a bit careful on the soft tyres in the hot conditions so I pushed for as long as I could until Colin began to deploy his hybrid, and let’s be honest, he was never going to make a mistake – it’s not for nothing that he’s nicknamed the ‘King of Croft’!
“We knew it would be tricky on the hard tyre in race two; we won that particular battle, which was great, but as soon as the guys on the softs came up behind, it made sense to let them past so they could just get on with it. In that scenario, you don’t want to trip over people, especially when we had a gap back to everybody else on hards. Discretion was definitely the better part of valour; there was little point in fighting too hard or taking any risks when the soft tyre was clearly much quicker.
“Race three was then fantastic for the whole team, and I was so, so pleased for Tom [Chilton – team-mate] – he had the pace all weekend and he drove fantastically. The Hyundai felt phenomenal again – really alive and an absolute joy to drive – and knowing we’re in such a great window with it obviously gives me a lot of confidence.
“The BTCC is so incredibly competitive that we’ve got to make sure we perform every single time, but that’s a kind of pressure I enjoy, so we’ll keep our heads down, keep focussing on ourselves, keep doing the job we need to do and keep ticking the race weekends off. There’s still a long way to go and of course there’s always more we can extract, but we’re in a happy place and the car seems to be working well everywhere. Hybrid will likely be very significant at Knockhill, but I think we’ll be strong there nevertheless – so the target has to be more of the same...”
