Ricky Collard has no regrets over pass on Tom Ingram

Toyota’s Ricky Collard says he doesn’t regret his overtake on Tom Ingram in the final British Touring Car Championship race at Snetterton, with the clash costing him a first podium finish of the season.

Going into the final race of the weekend, Collard had already secured an 11^th and sixth place finish, meaning it would already be his best weekend in the series this year.

Drawn to start from fourth for the partially reversed grid race, Collard assumed third on the fifth lap of the race when he overtook Team Dynamics’ Daniel Rowbottom, with Ingram following him through.

However Ingram kept pace with Collard and on the final lap the Excelr8 Motorsport driver made a move on Collard at Agostini, but Collard fought back at Oggies and the two made contact as Collard re-took the position.

After the race, the stewards decided the move had been too forceful and switched the places back, costing Collard his first podium of 2022. Although the team appealed the decision, it was rejected the same evening.

“Ingram really put me under a lot of pressure, although in the middle of the race and towards the end, I actually started to pull away from him and managed the gap,” explained Collard to TouringCars.Net.

“But then onto the last lap he got a fantastic cut back on me and I wasn’t going to make it easy for him – we were banging doors going into Hamilton.

“He then rushed into Hamilton real fast and left me no space on the outside so I had to go for the cutback and then he moved over, not expecting me to go for the lunge.

“There was just enough room to get my Corolla down the inside. It was a proper touring car move.”

Although he later lost the podium, Collard said he had no regrets over the move in the team’s post-weekend report.

“Despite the penalty, I don’t regret my move at the end of race three and if I had the chance, I would do it again.

“There was no way I was giving up easily and ultimately, it was the last lap of the day – of course I was going to go for it if I saw an opportunity to fight back.

“In my opinion, the door was left open and it was a pukka touring car move – there was nothing dirty or malicious in it at all.

“Everyone loves this championship because there is a bit of door-rubbing – that’s what the fans come to see and what makes the BTCC so special.

“I’m disappointed for the team more than anything, because the guys seriously deserved some silverware from my side of the garage and having now lost two podiums this season, I’m feeling even more determined heading to my home track of Thruxton. Hopefully it’ll be third time lucky…”

Assessing his weekend overall, Collard was delighted with how it had turned out – especially given some initial concerns over the straight-line speed performance of his car.

“It’s been really consistent – every race we’ve moved forward. We qualified well, and if you’d told me at the start of the weekend if I’d walk away with the results that we had this weekend I would have snatched your hand off.

“We knew going in it would be a little bit difficult with the long straights here and the M-Sport engine, but all credit to M-Sport as they’ve really put a lot of effort and hard work in to sorting the engine and power unit out.

“Toyota and Speedworks have been working together with them to try and help as much as we can. I’ve been speaking with the engineers at M-Sport and my straight-line performance was decent out there.”