Tom Ingram is excited to be close to the pace despite a full quota of success ballast after topping the opening British Touring Car Championship practice session at Rockingham.
Ingram’s time – a 1:23.284s – was only a tenth adrift of James Cole’s pole position time at the 1.94 mile Northamptonshire speed bowl from 2017.
The Speedworks Motorsport driver echoed Jack Goff’s belief that lap times look to set for an improvement of around three or four tenths when qualifying gets underway this afternoon.
“That lap time was quite surprising, if I’m honest,” he admitted to TouringCars.net.
“It was the second or third flying lap that we did. The car is working really, really well; it’s exciting to be that close to the pace – I think it’ll be quicker than it was last year by a few tenths.
“I don’t know why that is, the conditions are quite good at the moment. The circuits have had a lot of rubber that’s been taken off, so it’s like a fresh bit of tarmac again now. We can only keep doing what we’re doing.”
Ingram also underlined his delight at how the car is responding to the ballast, on a circuit that should, in theory, make more difference than others where the weight is concerned.
“I’m really pleased with it so far, the car is doing everything we want. Our race runs were looking really competitive, so it’s looking good.”
“Completing disassociating from what we did in first practice, I’d like to be in the top ten this afternoon. If we do, we’ve really over-achieved, I think. But we can only do our best.”