Team VERTU moved onto eight wins for the season with another impressive weekend at Silverstone that allowed the EXCELR8-run squad to strengthen its quest to secure the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship title.
Tom Ingram, #80, scored his sixth win of the campaign to remain the man to beat in the Drivers’ Championship, having now scored more points than he has done in any other season in the UK’s premier racing series, with Tom Chilton (#3), Adam Morgan (#33) and Senna Proctor (#18) all displaying strong pace - despite that pace not being reflected in the final results.
Qualifying would result in changeable weather conditions, with Proctor, Morgan and Chilton all taking part in Group 1, Part 1. It looked like the #3 and the #18 would progress until Chilton failed the ride height test, demoting him to the back of the field, with the #33 also unable to progress.
That left them 13th and 19th on the grid for race one, with Ingram also unable to make it out of Part 1 from the second group, leaving him in 14th, having failed to make the Quick Six for the first time this year. Proctor, however, was able to fly the flag for the team as he made it the final part of the session before qualifying in sixth in the worst of the weather.
Electing to run the soft tyre in race one, Proctor raced his way through to fourth in the early laps and was sitting just outside the podium spots when the race went under caution late on, before eventually finishing behind the safety car.
All other Team VERTU drivers went with the medium tyre, with Ingram racing his way through to seventh spot, taking the flag ahead of Ash Sutton. Morgan also bagged a top ten finish to kickstart the weekend, although there was disappointment for Chilton after a left rear puncture forced him into an unscheduled pitstop that left him back in 20th.
The championship leader gambled with the soft tyre for race two, and it proved to be the right call as a storming opening lap saw him rocket up the order to third before he picked off Daniel Lloyd and Jake Hill to hit the front.
Although a safety car backed up the field, Ingram was never at risk of being overhauled as he added another win to his tally - meaning he is now the third most successful driver at Silverstone in terms of race wins.
It would be a tough race for the other Team VERTU cars, however, with Chilton moving up towards the top ten on the medium tyre before contact at Luffield left him off into the gravel to trigger the safety car period.
Morgan and Proctor were also in the wars, having been well placed in the top ten, with Morgan involved in contact with Aiden Moffat, which resulted in the #33 making contact with Proctor also.
Proctor then missed out on the points, having also picked up a ten-second penalty for exceeding track limits, with Morgan sustaining race-ending damage that resulted in the bonnet on his car coming open.
With the top twelve reversed on the grid for race three, Ingram was in the middle of the pack on the medium tyre at the start but battled hard to bring his car to the flag in fifth place and minimise his losses to Sutton - who was running on the soft rubber.
Morgan and Chilton would make the most of the soft tyre to race through the pack together from the back, gaining twelve places apiece to finish seventh and eighth, with Proctor also lapping strongly to take the flag just behind them before a time penalty dropped him back to 13th.
Ingram will now take a lead of 33 points into the Brands Hatch season finale, with Team VERTU just three points off the lead of the Teams’ Championship. The EXCELR8-run squad is also just one point off the top of the Manufacturers’/Constructors’ championship with three races remaining.
Tom Chilton, #3 Team VERTU Hyundai i30 Fastback N, said: “Somehow we’re still sixth in the points because we’ve had terrible luck this weekend, which all started in qualifying when we lost our time and ended up at the back of the grid. The first race was going okay until the puncture, which was caused by the rear left locking up. I’ve never had a tyre go like that in more than 500 BTCC races, so it was very bizarre.
“We should have been up there in the top ten and then in race two, everything was going along quite nicely and then...
“Coming from the back again in race three to finish in eighth was really fun, and the reason I go racing is because I want to have fun. However, I’d have preferred to have three boring races up at the front where we should have been with the pace we had in the car.”
Senna Proctor, #18 Team VERTU Hyundai i30 Fastback N, said: “We showed good pace in practice on Saturday and then made the right calls in qualifying to get through to Q3, where we should really have got pole - we just bolted the wet tyre on a little bit too early.
“We fought back to fourth in race one which was a good start to race day but then in race two, we were up there in the top six when I got hit in the rear and that was the end of that with the damage to the car. From 16th on the grid, we showed really good pace and had a strong run into the top ten before the penalty knocked us back, which was frustrating.
“It’s been one of those nearly weekends which means we leave with no silverware to show for our efforts, but we’ll put it behind us and roll on Brands Hatch.”
Adam Morgan, #33 Team VERTU Hyundai i30 Fastback N, said: “It’s been a bit of a missed opportunity for us today, which stems from qualifying. We were quick in practice but when qualifying came around, we just didn’t get it right which meant we were on the back foot for race day.
“We made solid progress on the medium tyre in race one and then plan was to try and get into the top eight for race two and then we’d be in a strong position for race three on the soft rubber.
“Unfortunately we got removed from the race which put us at the back, but we had quite a fun race with Tom [Chilton], Dan Cammish and Dan Rowbottom coming from the back. We’ve scored some points from the weekend but it’s a day of what could have been.”
Tom Ingram, #80 Team VERTU Hyundai i30 Fastback N, said: “I think we've had as good a weekend as we could have hoped for given our qualifying pace. We knew that the TTB was always going to play against us in that scenario, so we just had to be fairly tactful with our moves and opportunities that presented themselves.
“The first race, if I'm honest, I was surprised to be able to outscore Ash as I thought he was going to claw some points back on us and then in the second, we took the risk of going with the soft tyre expecting a lot of others to be on the medium - meaning victory had to be the target.
“We were never going to outscore Ash in race three when he had the soft tyre on so had to just try and minimise our losses, which we managed to do despite some questionable driving from some of those we were battling with.
“We had to pick and choose our battles a bit but we come away from the weekend with a solid lead and can now put our full focus onto Brands Hatch.”
