Team Toyota GB’s Tom Ingram believes his new-for-2019 Toyota Corolla is “in a really good place” after placing fourth in the opening British Touring Car Championship practice session at Donington Park.
The 2018 runner-up, who scored consistent points at the Brands Hatch season-opener earlier this month, was pleased to be at the sharp end in the damp session given his lack of experience with the car in wet conditions.
Ingram told TouringCars.Net that he feels both he and the team still have “more to find” as the Corolla is still in the early stages of development.
“We’re in a really good place actually, but we know that we’ve got more to find and I’ve got more to find in the car as well,” said Ingram.
“It’s a nice place to be and it’s good data as well – it’s still very early days with the car and certainly in the wet as well.
“We’ve really had very limited time, it’s nice that we’ve got a car that feels good. We’re in a good place.”
The Speedworks-run operation completed extensive winter testing in warmer conditions, and even tested at Donington, albeit in dry weather, giving no transferrable data to the current conditions.
“Ironically, whenever you normally go winter testing you never want it to rain and it always does,” explained Ingram. “And all through our winter testing we couldn’t get any wet weather!
“It wasn’t for lack of trying that’s for sure. It is what it is. In 2017 we didn’t have a single wet session all year and so far every single time we’ve gone out – at Brands and now this weekend – it seems to be wet!
“But it’s all usable data for us. As much as we’d like it to be nice, glorious, 30 degree weather every time we go out, really we’ve got to look at it as being good for data gathering.”
Ahead of free practice two later today, Ingram believes it’s a case of tweaking the setup to fine tune it for these conditions, but admits it’s still “early days” so knowing which way to go is difficult.
“A bit of all sorts really. A couple of areas that we need to improve, nothing major, just little tweaks,” he said.
“But once we’ve got an idea of it, we’ll see if this is the right way to go or not. Again, it’s all early days for us so it is literally just data gathering at the moment.
“But we’ll be all good, we should be in a good place.”