Team Toyota GB’s Tom Ingram says he is looking at his 2019 British Touring Car Championship campaign “in two halves” to account for the development phase of the new Toyota Corolla.
Ingram was runner-up last season in the venerable Toyota Avensis, but has now switched to a factory-backed Toyota Corolla for his 2019 assault.
Despite completing “a fair bit” of testing during the off-season, Ingram admits he wanted more and will be considering his campaign this year in two halves, with a push for big points coming in the latter half.
“We’ve had a fair bit of testing, but you’ll always want more,” Ingram told TouringCars.Net. “We’ve done three in Spain, a couple back in the UK, obviously got today and then we’re at Donington [Park] tomorrow.
“So we’ve had a bit but we want more, so I think really we’re looking at this season in two halves – we’ve got the start of the season to try and be there or there abouts and to try and stay consistent, and then pick up the big points in the second half of the season once we’ve understood the car a little bit more.
“But at the minute the lap time is there, but the feel we’re still waiting on. But that’ll come, that’ll definitely come, so it’s an exciting time for us.”
When questioned about the major differences between the Avensis and the new-for-2019 Corolla, Ingram compared it the experience to having to bed in a new pair of shoes.
“We’ve gone from a nice pair of comfortable shoes into a new pair, and whenever you put new shoes on they never feel quite as good but they always get there,” explained Ingram.
“And that’s really where we are – we’re at a point now where we just have to spend a little bit of time understanding the car, to get it to where we want to be. But I’m adamant that we’ll be there.”
Although the Corolla arrrived at Speedworks relatively early in the off-season, Ingram revealed the various time pressures that effect the development of a totally new machine.
“We got the car at the end of November or start of December really and we had a deadline which we wanted to get to at the start of January which we were about a week behind because of supply issues,” Ingram said.
“So we were on plan and then we missed one day that we’d like to have done so I think full credit to the guys to pull it back and get it all sorted in time.
“It’s come out and we’re really really pleased with it.”