Speedworks Motorsport’s Tom Ingram says he is “heartbroken and gutted” after his championship challenge came to an end as Colin Turkington has been crowned the 2018 British Touring Car champion.
Ingram rapidly progressed through the field from 14th on the grid in the second contest, but was forced to settle for fourth behind Turkington’s WSR stablemate Andrew Jordan, putting him out of mathematical contention for the championship heading into race three.
After becoming the Dunlop Forever Forward champion earlier today, Ingram is now provisionally the Independent Drivers champion for the second consecutive season, while Speedworks currently sit atop the Indepdent Teams championship just 10 points clear of Motorbase Performance.
Ingram told TouringCars.Net he is “distraught” to have missed out on the overall title, but is focusing on the positives from his best-ever BTCC campaign.
“I gave it 150% in that last race just to try to stand a chance,” said Ingram. “It wasn’t quite enough. So I’m heartbroken, I’m gutted, I’m absolutely distraught.
“But it was never ours to win this year, coming into this weekend.
“So really we look at the positives and for even what we’ve done so far this year has been incredible, so we can’t look at any part of this disappointed.
“We’ve still got one more race to go, we’ve obviously got the Independent Drivers’ championship which is good, we’ve now got to get the Independent Teams and try to finish off with a win.”
Ingram also believes he and his team can have pride in their performance this season, with Speedworks taking the fight to big manufacturers such as Team BMW.
“It’s impossible to look back at it with anything else but proper pride in our hearts for what we’ve achieved,” said Ingram.
“It’s a proper – I try not to use the term underdog because I think underdog makes us sound shit – but proper underdog in a way fighting against them, doing the business and showing them that it can be done.
“We can’t be disappointed at all, we look at the positives of everything. We’ve just missed out on the overall championship, won the Independent Drivers and going for the Independent Teams, we’ve had a fantastic year.”