Tom Ingram enjoys Pirtek Racing test

Ginetta Junior Champion Tom Ingram enjoyed his first taste of touring car racing this week, sampling Andrew Jordan’s Vauxhall Vectra at Silverstone. The test came about as a result of the 17-year-old winning the Ginetta Junior title this season.

With tutelage from BTCC race winner Andrew Jordan, Ingram completed around 100 laps of Silverstone’s National circuit, with a best time good enough to have seen him qualify 16th on the BTCC grid.

“I got a picture message yesterday showing my name on the side window and that got me excited. Then I’ve driven it today and it’s just been a brilliant experience,” said Ingram, speaking to the official BTCC website.

“This has been a fantastic prize that Ginetta has put up, though. In the Juniors you’re already on the support bill of the BTCC and then there’s the opportunity to drive a touring car at the end of the season. A massive thanks to Eurotech and Pirtek for putting so much effort into today and letting me out in their car.”

The switch from the lightweight, 1800cc, rear wheel drive G40 to the turbocharged BTCC racer of Andrew Jordan was a tough ask, but one which Ingram seemed to master well.

“Coming out of Juniors into one of these is just a bit different,” said Ingram. “The size of the car, the slick tyres, front-wheel-drive, the sequential gearbox… and the power – coming out of the corners there’s this whoosh of power and it just keeps pulling and pulling. It’s all a bit of a shock. Everything about it. It’s a touring car. It’s fantastic.”

“It was a very good day all-round,” said Pirtek Racing boss Mike Jordan to the Ginetta website, “The Vectra was obviously a big change from anything Tom had ever driven before, and a modern-day BTCC car is a tricky car to get decent pace out of. He approached it all incredibly sensibly.”

“I told him at the start of the day that it was not by going fast that he was going to impress us, and the worst thing he could have done would have been to go and stick it in the gravel on his first run when the circuit was all horrible and slippery still.

“We ended up giving him a lot more track time than we had planned, purely because we were so impressed with his whole attitude and we wanted to give him the best opportunity possible. In the end he was much faster than we expected.”

Testing alongside Ingram at Silverstone this week was Matt Neal in the Honda Civic, something which only served to make the High Wycombe racer’s day even more memorable.

“I was going round thinking this is cool. A few laps later I thought I’m in touring car at Silverstone with Matt Neal in my mirrors. It doesn’t get any better than this!