Tom Ingram stuns on BTCC debut with sixth on the grid

20-year-old Tom Ingram stunned the field on his British Touring Car Championship debut at Brands Hatch this afternoon, putting the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis sixth on the grid, only outqualified by five former champions in the BTCC.

Ingram’s time of 48.404 was less than two-tenths of a second off of the pole time set by Eurotech Racing’s Andrew Jordan. The Speedworks driver will line-up on the grid behind Jordan, Jason Plato, Colin Turkington, Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden, and just ahead of Team BMR’s Aron Smith and Alain Menu.

“I don’t think I could have expected that coming into the weekend. The team have done a fantastic job,” said Ingram to TouringCarTimes.

“We were 13th in the practice session this morning, but that was good as we knew there was time to find as well. To think that there’s only five previous champions that have outqualified me, I can’t really be too upset about that.

“So long as we can carry this momentum on to tomorrow, who knows what could happen…whilst I’m there we might as well see what happens, we want to try some giant killing and you never know what might happen in the first round in British Touring Cars.”

Ingram had a slight scare in the final moments of qualifying, running wide at Paddock Hill bend and kicking up the dust across the circuit, but was able to hold on to the car and return it to the pits in one piece.

“My bum bit a hole in the seat,” said Ingram. “I sent it in and caught a bit too much kerb and thought I was going to be on the roof, I’ve just about stopped shaking from that now.”