New British Touring Car Championship points leader Tom Ingram leaves Croft feeling ‘very pleased’ after continuing to carry momentum in his title campaign.
Ingram followed up his double win at Oulton Park last time out with a trio of top seven finishes in North Yorkshire, including a second behind team-mate Daniel Lloyd in race two that saw Excler8 Motorsport secure their first-ever 1-2 finish.
It means that the 28-year-old has now regained the top spot in the drivers’ standings, taking over from Josh Cook by a margin of three points.
With three of their four cars in the top ten in the first two races of the weekend, Ingram believes that the entire squad is starting to gain momentum as they develop the Hyundai i30 cars further.
“I’m very pleased, all in all,” said Ingram to TouringCars.Net. “It was important that we came out of here with some strong points after how well Oulton went – that was really important to maximise how that went and to not fritter it away by then having a terrible Croft.
“It’s all about momentum, so in that regard, it’s job done.
“We had a really good weekend – the car felt fantastic. It’s done everything I wanted it to do all weekend and we’ve improved it as the weekend has gone on.
“You can see that as well with the pace that Dan [Lloyd] had as well – I think we’re on to something with the car now, it’s just feeling really, really strong.”
In race two Ingram pulled off a brave move on Daniel Rowbottom at the first corner on the opening lap – followed by a pass on Colin Turkington’s BMW a few corners later at the fast Jim Clark Esses.
Ingram says that passing early on in the race was crucial – and he could do so with confidence knowing the rivals he was battling with.
“We’ve seen that Croft historically has been an easier place to defend – if you can get in front or get ahead of someone you’ve just got to park it on the apex in strategic places.
“So in that regard, laps one and two are really important to try and make hay. I got a good launch and managed to go to the outside of Dan [Rowbottom] – and actually the outside at Turn 1 isn’t a bad place to be, but it just takes trust and respect from both drivers to go through there.
“Thankfully I’ve got that with Dan and I’ve got that with Colin. I trust that neither of those are going to do anything stupid. I trust Dan that he isn’t going to do anything daft and of course I trusted Colin with the same thing again.
“Both of those could very easily have had me in the fence and ruin the weekend, but they didn’t.”
Ingram also gave credit to Excelr8 Motorsport for the work they did to repair team-mate Lloyd’s car after Oulton Park, and the fact that Lloyd then went on to win the day’s opening two races.
“The bigger credit goes to Dan and to Excelr8 and the job they’ve done this weekend.
“To be able to get the car back from Oulton Park in the state that Dan’s was in and to get it repaired, turned around and come out of the box fighting at Croft I think is quite incredible.”