Tom Ingram: Losing out on the title is ‘a hard one to take’

Tom Ingram found losing out on the 2024 British Touring Car Championship title ‘a hard one to take’ having fallen short of Jake Hill by just eight points at Brands Hatch on Sunday.

Ingram and Hill went into the weekend tied on points, and after Ingram out-qualified his rival on Saturday, he was in an optimistic mood heading into race day.

Things quickly unravelled at the start of the opening race, however, when Ingram was caught up in an incident between Josh Cook and Ash Sutton, forcing him wide and turning Sutton across the front of Ingram’s Hyundai.

The EXCELR8 Motorsport star thus dropped to ninth, whilst ‘the sea parted’ for rival Hill, who sailed into second, which quickly became first when his WSR stable-mate Colin Turkington moved aside for him.

Although Ingram mounted an impressive recovery drive, Turkington put up a determined defence of second and denied Ingram any further progress, leaving him to settle for third.

Ingram came back with renewed vigour in the second race to quickly get past the BMW duo ahead over the opening two laps, going on to win – and take the fastest lap – to leave him just one point adrift of Hill going into the final race of the season.

However, there was another curve ball ahead of that final race, as drizzle descended on the Kent circuit, creating a slippery surface for the finale.

That ultimately proved a hindrance to Ingram who, having started seventh, was unable to maintain his early pace, that had seen him briefly get ahead of Hill on lap two.

Once Hill’s tyre temperatures and pressures had risen, he got back by Ingram three laps later, and the Hyundai driver lacked the pace to keep with his rival, leading to him losing out on the 2024 title by just eight points.

“The finale is always a rollercoaster,” said Ingram. “Obviously the last race was disappointing, because we did everything we needed to in race two to offset what we’d lost in race one.

“To all of a sudden be back in the mix, one point behind, it felt like it was absolutely on.

“I was fairly confident we were going to be quick in race three in those conditions, but it wasn’t the case. We did everything we needed to in the first four laps – got a gap, got in the mix, got ahead of Jake.

“Then all of a sudden, it was like somebody pressed the off switch on our performance. I just couldn’t do it. I lost my performance and was thinking ‘this is not good’. I just bumbled around.

“Our wet weather performance this year is where we’ve struggled. If you look at Snetterton, Silverstone – yes we got two wins, but we weren’t that strong in comparison to where we were in the dry.

“Had there been a bit more water there it would maybe have been a different story. The frustrating thing is we were unbelievably fast in the dry, so it’s such a shame that the championship was decided by a wet, greasy, horrible race at Brands Hatch GP rather than a nice, consistent day of dry running.

“I think had we had a dry race three, it would have been a different story. However, it wasn’t. It was a wet race and the story is what the story is.

“Full credit to Jake, MB Motorsport and everyone, they’ve done really well. It’s just disappointing from our side that when we needed the performance to win a championship [it wasn’t there].

“It’s effectively made the 29 races that have gone before completely pointless – it was a one-race championship. So, for it to come down to a one race shootout for a title in those conditions when the car felt really shit it was hard to take.

“But that’s unfortunately the name of the game, that’s sport, it’s how it works.”

When asked about how team play may have influenced the championship, in particular from WSR, Ingram was unequivocal.

“It’s not been a bad thing for them [WSR] has it? It’s given them three points in the fight with Turkington in the first race.

“If you think back to Snetterton when they had Thompson out, and he took some points out of us and let Hill have the win. That took points out of us and gave Jake three points.

“There’s a number of occasions like that and unfortunately it is what it is. That’s part of being in a team, isn’t it?

“This year has been a case of consistency as well. We’ve had four non-scores this year, but it’s too many.

“We’ve had a good few races this year that haven’t gone our way, and that’s really disappointing because there’s so many occasions that Spencer [Aldridge, Ingram’s race engineer] and I have spoken about it after the weekend and gone ‘we could have won all three’ because our performance in the dry is just ridiculous.

“This championship a lot of the time is won on a bit of luck and on a couple of occasions we’ve been on the wrong side of it.”

Ingram will start his 2025 preparations by undertaking five days of testing in two weeks’ time at Anglesey.