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Tom Ingram was yet to take a win this season despite being second in the championship. The EXCELR8 driver came away “very pleased” after a difficult Sunday.
After a fourth and a seventh place finish on top of an illness Sunday may have started to drag for Ingram. After a decision to be the only hard tyre runner in race two his first win of the season came despite being disheartened out on reverse grid pole.
“Yeah, not getting the benefit of it, to be one position away from the benefit of it Yeah, absolutely right.” Ingram told TouringCars.Net. “But it’s always funny, Spenny [Spencer Aldridge, Chief Race Engineer] and I have joked no end of times that we never seem to get the rub on the reverse grid.
“Ironically I saw 7 got pulled and I was like, ‘ah great we start second’. I never understand the reverse grid and it wasn’t until I looked at my little cheat sheet that I went, ah no. We are where we are so that was a bit disheartening.
“At the same time we kind of knew that we had a little advantage on the tyre choice so we could kind of capitalise on that. So it was a bit of an inspired choice to take the pain in race 2 to make sure we could then take the glory in race 3.”
We have heard a lot from Ingram so far this season about how not winning is not getting to him. Even with this being the case, it was fair to assume he was happy to get a win under his belt so far this season.
“Yeah, absolutely right obviously off the back of today as well…” Ingram turned away to give his race winners trophy to one of the team crew. “off the back of today it was even more satisfying than all the other days.
“So yeah, very pleased, but we’ve just got to make sure we knuckle down and make sure we come back and try and stop these NAPA boys because they’re very fast.”
The first place to try to topple the pace of the NAPA Racing UK cars is at Thruxton. Ingram has had pace there in the past but believes he can take it up a notch when racing resumes in June.
“I think it’s a circuit that we’ve gone well at in the past. I think we’re probably better placed to stand a better chance of being a little bit stronger this year so we should be alright.”