Podium milestone and compelling charge for Ingram at Snetterton
Seven years ago at Snetterton, Tom Ingram scythed through the field from the tail-end of the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship grid to reach the rostrum. At the most recent event (24-25 May) he very nearly did it again.
Despite benefitting from only three seconds per lap of turbo boost in qualifying – due to arriving in Norfolk sitting second in the standings – the Team VERTU driver progressed comfortably through both Part 1 and Part 2. The #80 subsequently secured a front row berth in the 'Quick Six' session, a scant 0.030s adrift of the top spot.
The following day, Ingram went straight on the attack, challenging Dan Cammish for the lead at the start of the curtain-raising contest. After keeping Cammish honest over the opening two-thirds of the race, as his Ford Focus ST-racing rival began to deploy his boost to pull away, the 2022 champion turned his attentions to staving off a hard-charging Ash Sutton behind.
Twice, the championship leader attempted to prise the door ajar on the last lap in an enthralling cat-and-mouse duel, but Ingram resolutely stood his ground. Judiciously saving some of his limited boost allocation for the final few corners, he expertly soaked up the pressure to seal the runner-up spoils – his sixth podium finish from seven starts in 2025 and the 100th of his impressive BTCC career, earning him membership to an elite and exclusive club.
With the regulations stipulating that the top three finishers from race one must run the hard tyres in race two, the Bucks-born ace knew he would be up against it – especially with everybody else on the significantly faster soft-compound rubber. He was busy fending off Dan Rowbottom for second when disaster struck on lap three, as a rare error pitched the #80 Hyundai i30N sideways on the exit of Riches; in trying to gather it up again, Ingram made contact with the circuit’s unforgiving Armco barriers, damaging his car’s suspension.
That not only resulted in his first non-score of 2025, it also meant he would begin the day’s finale from way back in 24th on the grid, but in front of the live ITV4 television cameras, he produced a blistering start and a similarly meteoric opening lap to climb immediately to 13th.
After narrowly avoiding a second early bath when he was involved in a clash between Daryl DeLeon and Stephen Jelley, the 31-year-old set about picking his adversaries off one-by-one. Having fought his way up to fifth, he then set about closing down a two-second deficit to Sam Osborne ahead, executing a textbook switchback manoeuvre at Agostini on the penultimate tour to make fourth position his own.
Ingram’s stirring charge through the pack means he will travel next to the fastest circuit in the country – Thruxton in Hampshire on 7-8 June – still holding second place in the title table, just 15 points adrift of the summit.
Tom Ingram, Driver, Team VERTU, said: “The first thing I have to say is that, once again, the car felt phenomenal all weekend – unbelievably hooked-up, doing everything I wanted it to and an absolute dream to drive. We’re in a nice window with it and I was proper chuffed with qualifying considering our comparative lack of turbo boost. There was next-to-nothing between Dan [Cammish] and myself, and while I was more than a tenth-and-a-half up on my previous best when the red flag came out, second still put us in a really good place for race day.
“It was always going to be tough to beat Dan in race one as he had much more boost available, and I additionally lost some brake cooling early on, which left me vulnerable in the braking zones so I had to be mindful of that – particularly with Ash [Sutton] looming in my mirrors! I knew he would be planning an attack, which meant I couldn’t afford to make a mistake – if you leave so much as two millimetres of extra space, he will fill it.
“It certainly got fairly close towards the end – Ash stuck his nose in a couple of times on the last lap – but it was all good, hard touring car racing and second position was a strong result to kick the day off. I was pleased with that, and to have reached the milestone of 100 podiums in the BTCC is a pretty amazing achievement.
“I held my hands up to what happened in race two – that one was completely on me as I pushed too hard trying to defend my position on the hard tyres – and I went into race three determined to repay all the EXCELR8 guys and girls for doing such a great repair job.
“It was fairly full-on from the start. Stephen Jelley got spun across the pack, and I ended up head-butting him! I thought that would be game over, but fortunately we were able to carry on – albeit carrying a bit of damage – and then we just kept on going all the way up to fourth.
“So all-in-all, aside from race two, I think we had another good weekend. The Hyundai is mega every time we turn up, which is encouraging. Its balance is fantastic, the front-end is like nothing else I’ve ever driven and the traction and mid-corner performance we’re getting out of it is unreal. Honestly, I’ve never driven a car that’s felt so good – it’s simply outrageous – so it’s kind of galling that despite scoring six podiums so far this season, we still haven’t won. We’ll have to make sure we rectify that at Thruxton...”