Tom Ingram produced one of his finest Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship performances to date at Donington Park last weekend (30/31 August), as a 38th triumph of his career in the UK’s premier motorsport series pushed him further ahead of his rivals at the summit of the standings.
The Team VERTU star worked together with stablemate Tom Chilton to speed comfortably clear of the pursuing pack in the opening bout after the duo locked out the front row in qualifying. The #80 briefly assumed the lead to snare an extra championship point before settling back into second place, which is where he would finish.
That obliged Ingram to run the hard-compound tyres in race two, as per the regulations. He worked hard to fend off Ash Sutton early on, before drama further back brought out the safety car.
When the action resumed, the Bucks-born ace immediately relieved Chilton of first place – narrowly avoiding being collected by a sideways Sutton, who himself had been tagged at the rear.
Although he had to cede to Dan Cammish and Adam Morgan on the medium rubber, he remained firmly in contention in third and looked to be heading for a second consecutive trip to the rostrum as the heavens then opened.
The flash downpour sent many of the front-runners skating off at McLeans, and by the time Ingram rejoined the circuit, he was down in fifth. With the intervention of the safety car neutralising the order, that was where he stayed until a post-race disqualification for Chris Smiley elevated him to fourth.
The result earned the 32-year-old fifth on the partially-reversed grid for the day’s finale, and in front of the live ITV4 television cameras and capacity trackside crowd, he executed an assertive opening tour to climb to third, before punishing a lock-up by Josh Cook going into Redgate Corner next time around to slice down the inside into second.
He then swiftly set his sights on arch-rival Sutton who was on the harder rubber. After finding his initial attempts to get past repeatedly rebuffed, Ingram exploited a strong run out of the Esses Chicane on lap four to draw alongside.
In an intense duel between the two title protagonists, Sutton fought back, and the pair ran wheel-to-wheel until the Team VERTU driver made the move stick through Hollywood.
A victory that meant the Coventry-based racer’s 16th podium finish of the campaign exceeded his 2024 tally with six races still to run. Leaving the #80 as the weekend’s highest scorer, he will travel to Silverstone for the penultimate event of the season holding a 32-point advantage at the top of the title table.
Tom Ingram, Driver, Team VERTU, said: “What an absolutely cracking weekend! We were confident going to Donington that we had a good car there – we were quick around the ‘National’ layout earlier in the year – and it was nice to see that translate to the ‘GP’ loop as well.
“I think we played a blinder in qualifying. The weather never really decided what it wanted to do, which made things quite stressful, and we had to take a minimal risk approach with regards to tyre choice, because as much as it could have gone right, it could also have gone very wrong.
“We knew the start of race one would be important, as the plan was to try to establish a gap over the rest of the field early on. That worked perfectly – we did what we could to score as many points as possible without Tom [Chilton] giving up a win. A one-two finish was a very good start to the day.
“It was obvious that there was a threat of rain in race two, but the abruptness with which it came down was crazy – I’ve honestly never seen anything like that before! There was no time to react, and I just had to do my best to try to gather it all up again.
“It was a shame not to finish third, because on the hard tyre, that would have been an amazing result, but considering how it could have played out, we still scored some very solid points.
“I knew I had slightly more tyre performance than Ash [Sutton] in the finale, but he never makes anybody’s life easy. We always race hard, lean on each other and indulge in a little bit of paint-swapping, but we also have a lot of mutual respect and both know how far we can push it.
“To win that one after such a mega battle was a great way to end the weekend. It’s a heck of a car we’ve got here – at every circuit we turn up to, in every type of weather and no matter what gets thrown at it, it’s simply fantastic – and going next to Silverstone, which is somewhere we have done well in the past, I think we’re in a really strong place...”
