Tom Ingram considers his Snetterton weekend in the British Touring Car Championship to have been ‘a very good job in damage limitation’ after he lost just one point in the title race despite missing the podium in all three races.
Ingram went into the weekend ten points shy of series leader Ash Sutton, and came out of it just 11 points adrift, after scoring a best result of fourth across the day’s three races.
The EXCELR8 Motorsport driver had failed to progress beyond his qualifying group on Saturday, struggling with a lack of hybrid power due to going into the weekend second in the standings.
That meant Ingram faced an uphill task in race one from 13th on the grid, and he used his three laps of hybrid allocation to good effect.
The 2022 champion was up to ninth by the end of the opening lap, becoming eighth with a move on Chris Smiley the next time by, and he then passed four-time champion Colin Turkington along the back straight on lap five.
Ingram finally got by the second Team BMW car of Adam Morgan on lap 11 to claim sixth, making up more places than any other driver in the race and posting the fastest lap.
A heavy thunderstorm delayed race two, and when proceedings got underway Ingram made a late dive to the pits for slick tyres, after rival Sutton triggered the change first.
It proved to be the wrong choice, and Ingram struggled along with two of his other title rivals, his efforts being compounded by an additional burst of rain late in the race, leaving him to finish down in 16th.
With mixed weather continuing to affect things in the final race of the day, Ingram again opted for slicks and after gaining seven places on the opening lap he charged through the field to take fourth come the chequered flag.
Impressively, Ingram also posted the fastest lap of the race, despite not being on the favourable soft tyre.
Despite the mixed weekend, Ingram was pleased that there was minimal effect on his championship charge as his key rivals also suffered from a mixed day of racing.
“You’re always going to have good weekends and bad weekends in this series – they come and go,” said Ingram. “But to concede only one point in the title battle after qualifying further down the field than we had been expecting and making the wrong call on tyres in race two I think represented a very good job in damage limitation.
“Saturday was a tricky day; we just genuinely didn’t have the pace. We calculated our hybrid deficit to be worth about eight tenths-of-a-second per lap and knew it would be pretty effective at Snetterton – particularly down the two long straights – but that didn’t tell the full story.
“When we bolted the wet tyres on in qualifying, nothing happened; we simply didn’t have any grip and it was really hard to get anything out of the session.
“We went through all the data overnight and tried to come up with a masterplan for Sunday, and the Hyundai came alive on the soft tyres in race one.
“It felt superb, and we did well to battle through against cars that had more hybrid than us, which put the smile back on my face.
“Race two, by contrast, was scary, unpleasant and basically a little bit rubbish! There was no silver lining to take from it, other than not crashing, but it was great to come away with a good result in race three.
“The conditions were quite sketchy again, because the first two sectors were dry whereas the last one was still very wet and stubbornly remained that way.
“You’d build up lots of confidence and tyre temperature and be full of bravery around the first two-thirds of the lap and then you’d get to sector three and it was a wild ride, to say the least!
“It felt like such a long day because it required so much mental concentration with the changeable weather and tyre choices to think about and so many permutations to constantly consider.
“We really had to be on the ball, but I think we learned more from that single day than we did from the first two race weekends this year, so I’m feeling good for Thruxton, where you never know, maybe we’ll even get some consistently dry running if we’re lucky…”