Tom Ingram hails ‘phenomenal’ team effort to bring home podium

Tom Ingram heaped praise on the phenomenal job that his EXCELR8 Motorsport team carried out at Donington Park this past weekend, all of which played a pivotal role in ensuring he remains in the hunt for the British Touring Car Championship with six races left to run.

Ingram entered the weekend with a three-point lead in the standings however the pendulum soon began to swing on race day as he was out-scored by his main rivals in race one, having had to bounce back from heavy contact that dropped him down the order in the opening exchanges.

More drama would play out in race two as, while challenging for the lead, a stone pierced the radiator of Ingram’s Hyundai and forced him into retirement during to rising engine temperatures. Despite being up against the clock, his team managed to change his engine in time for race three, where he lined up 19th.

What followed was one of the drives of the season from the 2022 champion as he charged up the order to finish in second place and with it, cut the gap to just nine points to new series leader Jake Hill.

“This is a team game, and never has a weekend shown that fact more than this one,” said Ingram. “After a recovery drive in the first race from the early contact, we were on for the win in race two before the stone went through the radiator and there was obviously a huge amount of disappointment when I had to come in and retire the car.

“However, the job that the team then did ahead of race three was phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. In little over an hour, they not only changed the engine but they had it running and pressure tested, they had the car all set-up and they sent me out with the tools to do the job.

“It’s the beauty of the relationship we have that I went out for that race and had absolutely no concerns about being able to push as hard as I could from the first corner of the first lap, despite the fact that the car didn’t even have a front end on it 45 minutes earlier.

“I hoped to be able to reward the team with a top six finish but having maximum hybrid made a massive difference and I was able to rocket through the field to bring home a podium. It shows how important it is to keep your head up when things might not be going your way and leaves us well placed ahead of Silverstone.”