Tom Ingram holds off Jake Hill to win Silverstone opener

Tom Ingram closed the gap to Jake Hill at the top of the British Touring Car Championship standings to just four points after claiming a commanding fourth win of the season at Silverstone.

Starting from pole position, the EXCELR8 Motorsport mastered the challenging wet conditions to pull clear of the chasing pack early on before falling into the clutches of Hill in the latter stages.

Hill delivered a superlative performance as he fought his way up to third from fifth and then after hounding his BMW team-mate Colin Turkington for a number of laps, dispatched the four-time champion at mid-distance.

Setting off after the Hyundai of Ingram, Hill showed his nose into Brooklands with a handful of laps remaining however he was unable to make any sort of move stick.

Alliance Racing’s Dan Cammish shadowed the pair over the line to claim third while reigning champion Ash Sutton bounced back from his lowly qualifying to make up ten positions to finish fourth. Turkington – who had run as high as second at one stage – completed the top five.

Tom Chilton was another to fight back from a frustrating qualifying showing to clinch sixth while Josh Cook dug deep to salvage seventh. Cook had been running further up the order before he received a substantial hit from Dan Rowbottom at Becketts – with the latter retiring.

Completing the top ten behind Cook was Sam Osborne, Andrew Watson and the impressive Dan Zelos, who came from the back of the grid to clinch tenth.

Mikey Doble was an unfortunate non-starter after suffering a turbo issue prior to the green flag lap.

Race two around the Home of British Motor Racing is scheduled to begin at 14:20.