Toyota Gazoo Racing UK’s Tom Ingram said he was “really pleased” to secure pole position for the opening British Touring Car Championship contest of the 2020 season finale at Brands Hatch, especially given the “super tricky” conditions throughout the session.
Ingram had been sat in the top three for the majority of the session before an improvement in the final third saw him snatch pole position from Motorbase Performance’s Rory Butcher by just 0.024s on the twisty 1.2-mile layout.
With incidents aplenty in changeable conditions, Ingram said that he struggled to find a rhythm as the circuit felt “very different from free practice,” and believes that setup changes made during the session were pivotal to capitalising on more favourable grip levels in the dying minutes of qualifying.
“That was super tricky, it was really slippery! It took quite a while to get into a rhythm because the circuit felt very different from free practice, so we were actually chasing some of the set up during the session,” said Ingram.
“My engineer came over the radio with some really inspired set up choices which we went with and it just transformed the car. It was a tricky session but I’m very, very pleased to get it done.”
The Toyota racer admitted that there was “a bit of luck” involved in terms of the timing with the track conditions, traffic and stoppages, and explained that the window of peak performance on the Goodyear wet rubber makes it crucial to time the lap perfectly.
“Trying to call it at the right time is so so tricky. A lot of the time it’s about a bit of luck, maybe just catching it at the right time, you’ve got your tyre temperature just at the right time and you get a bit of clear space,” he said.
“The wet tyre is a very good tyre but you get such a small margin for it to be at its absolute peak performance, especially on such a short lap, when there’s a bit of traffic and so many people going off.”
Still within mathematical contention for the championship, the 2018 runner-up noted that he feels relaxed heading into tomorrow’s trio of races as he can approach the weekend like any other and has nothing to lose in terms of the title battle.
“I feel really relaxed this weekend, more this weekend than any other event previously, I think it’s probably because there’s no direct pressure on me? I can do the best job I can, qualify on pole and win all three races tomorrow, but if everyone else we’re fighting against is directly there it’s null and void.
“There’s not that much pressure on me, the team and I can only do the best job we can, and if it’s enough, it’s enough. So I feel very relaxed, very chilled which actually is a nice place to be.
“There’s no point me looking at where everyone else is, all I’m going to do is just go, have some fun and enjoy the last race meeting of the year.”
The opening British Touring Car Championship race at Brands Hatch gets underway tomorrow [15 November] at 10:00 BST.