Tom Ingram secures reverse-grid win in race three

Tom Ingram won the reversed grid final British Touring Car Championship race at Knockhill, with the Excelr8 Motorsport driver pulling off a superb pass on long-time race leader Stephen Jelley to take the spoils.

Jelley had the pole position for the final race of the day, with Power Maxed Racing’s Jason Plato alongside him on the front row of the grid.

At the start, the Team BMW driver pulled into a clear lead, with Plato holding second as Ingram jumped past Senna Proctor to claim third.

The race was only a lap old when the safety car was called for, due to BTC Racing’s Josh Cook coasting to a standstill with a suspected driveshaft failure.

The Honda was quickly cleared away and racing resumed on lap four, with the leading drivers once again holding station for the first few laps of racing.

For several laps, Ingram tried hard to pass Plato for second but couldn’t quite pull off a move until lap ten when he took a chance created by leader Jelley, who had been struggling on the brakes into the hairpin and in turn baulked Plato.

Ingram muscled into second, whilst Plato was forced onto the outside line, also allowing Proctor through into third.

Over the next few laps Plato then found himself falling down the order as first Jake Hill on lap 11, and then Gordon Shedden, also squeezed through.

Elsewhere, Colin Turkington had held Ash Sutton at bay in the opening laps in seventh, but the race one winner was embroiled in a big mid-pack fight and on lap 11 lost four places, as all three Infinitis and Chris Smiley muscled him out.

Plato too found himself losing out to the Laser Tools Racing cars on lap 15, dropping to ninth, as Sutton muscled past his former team-mate.

At the front, Ingram had been applying significant pressure to Jelley for the lead and on lap 17 made a superb late move into the hairpin to cleanly take the lead, the title contender not looking back thereafter to notch up this third win of the season.

Proctor also found his way into second in the process, a position he would hold to the chequered flag, with Jelley having to settle for the final podium place in third, the BMW driver’s second visit to the rostrum this year.

Team Dynamics’ Shedden claimed fourth after squeezing past MB Motorsport’s Jake Hill on lap 18, just a fraction of a second ahead of Sutton in fifth, who had tried to snatch the place on the finish line.

Chris smiley brought his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai home in sixth to conclude his best weekend of the year thus far, ahead of Aiden Moffat in seventh.

Turkington was eighth, having at one stage dropped to 11^th just before the halfway mark, ahead of Plato and Daniel Rowbottom, who completed the top ten.

Hill ultimately failed to finish the race after going off through the Turn 1 gravel on lap 21 when battling with Smiley, the Ford driver retreating to the pits after initially dropping to 11^th.

The results mean Sutton leaves Scotland with 172 points to his name at the top of the drivers’ standings, ahead of Ingram (158), Turkington (138), Shedden (129), Hill (128) and Cook (123).

Race Results

POS	NO	CL	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP	GD
1	80	I		Tom INGRAM	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	25	22:23.760	51.788	4
2	18	I		Senna PROCTOR	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	25	1.383	51.659	3
3	12	M		Stephen JELLEY	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	25	4.658	51.835	1
4	52	I		Gordon SHEDDEN	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	25	5.211	51.624	5
5	1	I		Ashley SUTTON	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	25	5.273	51.686	9
6	22	I		Chris SMILEY	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	25	6.033	51.667	13
7	16	I		Aiden MOFFAT	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	25	6.432	51.762	11
8	2	M		Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	25	10.298	51.746	8
9	11	I		Jason PLATO	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	25	11.932	51.842	2
10	32	I		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	25	12.546	51.720	18
11	41	I		Carl BOARDLEY	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	25	16.436	51.762	10
12	40	I		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	Team HARD. with HUB Financial Solutions	CUPRA Leon	25	16.883	51.916	15
13	33	I		Adam MORGAN	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	25	17.076	51.634	16
14	15	M		Tom OLIPHANT	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	25	17.507	51.670	17
15	48	M		Ollie JACKSON	MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Ford Focus ST	25	18.575	51.834	22
16	96	I		Jack BUTEL	EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	25	19.350	52.022	14
17	4	M		Sam OSBORNE	Racing with Wera & Photon Group	Ford Focus ST	25	19.796	51.838	20
18	123	I		Daniel LLOYD	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	25	20.405	51.731	26
19	99	I		Jade EDWARDS	PHSC with BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	25	23.312	52.010	23
20	6	M		Rory BUTCHER	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	25	23.466	51.560	28
21	20	20		Paul RIVETT	Racing with Wera & Photon Group	Ford Focus ST	25	24.111	52.101	19
22	19	I		Jack MITCHELL	Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct	CUPRA Leon	25	24.420	51.859	21
23	3	I		Tom CHILTON	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	25	24.482	51.975	25
24	23	M		Sam SMELT	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	25	25.027	51.814	24
25	62	I		Rick PARFITT Jr	EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	25	25.120	52.019	27
26	31	I		Jack GOFF	Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct	CUPRA Leon	25	38.599	51.676	12
R	24	M		Jake HILL	MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Ford Focus ST	22	DNF	51.662	7
NC	28	I		Nicolas HAMILTON	ROKiT Racing with iQuoto Online Trading	CUPRA Leon	21	DNF	52.231	29
R	66	I		Josh COOK	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	0	DNF	N/A	6