Tom Ingram: “We just need a bit of a spark”

Tom Ingram insists that the Speedworks team “just need a bit of a spark” to fight for victories in 2020 after securing a second podium finish of the BTCC season at Knockhill.

Ingram made the trip to Scotland looking to bounce back from a DNF in the final race of the weekend at Oulton Park, and qualified his Toyota Corolla in fifth spot on the grid having bounced back well from missing a chunk of practice due to a leak in the gearbox.

A race long battle with Jake Hill’s Honda ended with Ingram taking fourth place in the opening race of the weekend but a good start to race two saw him get ahead of the MB Motorsport man to take a podium finish behind Ash Sutton and Colin Turkington in race two.

Tenth sport in a chaotic finale means Ingram sits sixth in the standings, but just 16 points down on Rory Butcher in third ahead of the short three-week break before round five at Thruxton.

“It’s been a good weekend,” he said. “We got ourselves onto the podium, we scored good points in the first race and then race three was a all just a bit chaotic and busy with stuff going on all the time which made it difficult. With the rear-wheel drive cars around us on the grid, it was always going to be tough to make progress although tenth is good points again; but we could just do with a bit of spark at the moment.

“We haven’t had much luck this season and we have to hope for some more luck on our side in the rounds to come and, in the nicest possible way, for some of the others to have some bad luck.”

Ingram added that the team will use the break ahead of round five to evaluate how to come back stronger when racing resumes.

“We always try to look over everything after a race weekend, even when we have been back-to-back,’ he said. “It’s a case of not rushing things and making sure you box clever and that doesn’t change whether there is a week between races or two weeks.

“Saying that, it will be good to have a few weeks away to take stock of what we need to do in the second half of the year before we come back out at Thruxton.”