Tom Ingram retains second despite luckless weekend

Tom Ingram admitted he was surprised to retain second in the points standings after a luckless weekend at Oulton Park.

Ingram headed into fourth meeting of the BTCC season on the back of wins at both Snetterton and Brands Hatch, with his goal being to try and overhaul Ash Sutton at the head of the points.

Aware that the ballast on his Hyundai would make the going tough, Ingram’s job was made even harder when a wastegate issue in qualifying prevented him from setting a time.

Although he got up into the points when the opening race was halted, Ingram slipped back after the restart to 19th place as he struggled with tyre wear but then managed to fight up to tenth in race two.

Just missing out on the reverse grid pole, Ingram jumped up into the top six before another incident behind caused a red flag and on the restart, he was forced to take to the grass to avoid a spinning Sutton.

Pitting to have grass removed from the radiator dropped the Hyundai to the back, although he would salvage another point for fastest lap before the finish.
 
“I don’t quite know what I’ve done to upset Oulton Park, but it clearly doesn’t like me very much as things never go to plan there!” he said. “Saturday was obviously a difficult and disappointing day for us, but we stayed level-headed and did what we needed to do on race day to claw our way up the order and haul ourselves into the mix.

“With the weight removed, the Hyundai came alive and felt fantastic in races two and three, but it would have been so much nicer to be able to show that pace at the front of the field.

“After rising to sixth at the start of race three and with virtually no ballast, I felt like we were in a really good place but then of course the red flags came out and we had to do it all over again – and we know how that turned out…”
 
Although Dan Rowbottom has closed in behind, Ingram still sits just five points behind Sutton in the standings but he admitted that his unfortunate weekend on track was nothing compared to the tragedy that occurred at Brand Hatch, where a volunteer marshal was killed in an accident on Saturday.
 
“We might very well have been leading the championship now had things gone differently, but by the same token, at least Ash didn’t score many points either so it could definitely have been worse,” he said.

“At the end of the day, it’s important to put all of this into perspective. What happened to us pales into complete insignificance compared to the events at Brands Hatch, and above and beyond anything else, my thoughts go out to everybody affected by that tragedy and the family and friends of the marshal involved.”