As the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship prepares to resume from its mid-season break, Tom Ingram has warned his rivals that he is ‘ready to come out fighting’ in his quest to successfully defend his hard-won Drivers’ crown.
Ingram’s consistency over the opening 15 races of the 2023 campaign has been commendable as he has finished inside the top ten in every outing. He ascended the podium on nine occasions – taking his overall tally to 71 – and triumphed at Snetterton in May behind the wheel of his Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance.
That leaves him placed second overall and six points shy of Ash Sutton at the summit of the standings with 15 races still to run. As a statement of intent, earlier this month, Ingram posted the fastest lap during the annual Goodyear tyre test around Donington Park’s famous ‘GP’ layout, which returns to the BTCC calendar this summer for the first time in more than two decades.
Before that, however, the Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 driver will head north to Croft in Yorkshire (29/30 July) and Knockhill in Scotland (12/13 August) where he will be looking to add to his victory count and ramp up his efforts to add a second championship title to his CV.
Saturday afternoon’s qualifying session from Croft will be streamed on ITV Sport’s YouTube channel from 15:15, with every moment of Sunday’s doorhandle-to-doorhandle action to be broadcast live and in high-definition on ITV4 from 11:30.
Tom Ingram, Driver, Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8, said:
“We’re in a good position and I feel like we’re in decent shape. The first half of the season was so frenetic, bouncing from one race weekend to the next, that we didn’t really get time to pause and evaluate everything but we’ve since had the opportunity to take stock and reflect and have found a little bit more time from the car.
“My team-mate Tom Chilton was quickest in the morning at the tyre test and I was quickest in the afternoon, which was really encouraging, and I think we need to just keep on doing what we’ve been doing – this is not the time to start reinventing the wheel, because we know what works for us and what doesn’t and fundamentally, we’ve got a very good package.
“We tested at Croft earlier in the year and were comfortably under lap record pace without running light or deploying any hybrid, and we’ve obviously further improved the car since then so I would like to think we can begin the second half of the campaign as we mean to go on. The key is to keep focussing on ourselves and doing the very best job we can, and I genuinely feel more excited right now than I did prior to the start of the season. I’m ready to come out fighting!”
