Tom Ingram was left delighted after securing a second pole position of the season as the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship heads to Thruxton for another triple header of action-packed races today [8th May], but the Speedworks Motorsport star insists his focus is on scoring solid points.
Ingram clocked a 1:16.141, a new qualifying lap record around the notoriously challenging 2.4 mile Thruxton circuit, which bests the previous record set by Andrew Jordan in 2014. He shares the front row with rising star Aiden Moffat, with a success ballast-laden Matt Neal in third ahead of the MG duo of Josh Cook and Ashley Sutton.
From pole position at Brands Hatch, Ingram was able to take a controlled victory on base weight ahead of the two Halfords Yuasa Racing Hondas, and his form this season lends itself towards a second win of the season if he can keep his nose clean in round seven.
He admitted qualifying had been a difficult session, as he had two pole position times disallowed by race officials during the thirty minutes for exceeding the track limits, something a number of drivers fell foul of.
“Awesome! Two poles out of three – that’s not a bad start to the season, is it? It was pretty sketchy early on, because I kept getting calls over the team radio saying ‘you’re quickest’, swiftly followed by ‘your lap time’s been removed’, so I knew I needed to calm down a bit,” explained Ingram.
“We had no ballast, which obviously played to our advantage and everything just hooked up perfectly. You’re never really sure where everybody is during practice and who’s sandbagging, but we knew we had some good pace in the car,”
He also paid tribute to the hard work of his Speedworks Motorsport outfit, and Ingram admits that the feeling of being on top is proving difficult to shake.
“The Speedworks boys are a great bunch of lads and having taken pole once at Brands Hatch, it instilled in us the belief that we could do it again – and now we have! I could definitely get used to this feeling”
He was, however, pragmatic when looking ahead to Sunday [8th May]’s three contests, electing to focus on the wider picture of consistency that so often paints champions elect in the BTCC.
“Pole position is one thing, however, and it’s vital that we now go on to score some good points tomorrow.”
Race one gets underway at 12:12.