Speedworks Motorsport’s Tom Ingram was “really happy” with sixth position in the opening practice session of the British Touring Car Championship at Brands Hatch.
The 2017 Independent Drivers’ champion sits 34 points adrift of standings leader Colin Turkington with 67 up for grabs this weekend.
He set a best time of 1:31.453, putting him three tenths off Sutton’s benchmark in a sunny free practice session on the 2.43-mile Grand Prix layout.
Due to his second position in the championship standings, Ingram carries 66kg of success ballast aboard is Toyota Avensis.
Despite this, he told TouringCars.Net the car felt “fantastic” in opening practice after completing a qualifying simulation as well a longer run.
“Really happy with that – the car felt fantastic actually,” said Ingram.
“We’ve already got a good baseline to work from so I’m happy and excited to carry on with the rest of the day now.”
“We were doing the normal run plans really, a bit of qualifying sim and then a bit of long distance stuff.
“But she felt fantastic – so far so good – so if we can carry on with that and just make little improvements as the day goes through we should be in really good shape.”
Although Ingram admitted it was only free practice and the order could shake up later on, he was encouraged given the immediate pace on older tyres.
“The tyres that we were running weren’t fantastic either so that gives us a little bit of gratification as well, the car as a baseline feels superb,” he said.
“We’ll make a load of changes just to see if we can better it even more, but we’ll make them, see what happens in the next one and then decide for qualifying.
“So far so good.”
The second practice session is scheduled to get underway at 12:05 BST (13:05 CEST), with another 40-minute session.