Double for Ingram – and a great escape
“I can skim the kerbs where I want, I can brake where I want, it’s got a fantastic balance, it’s got beautiful rotation. It’s doing everything I want it to.” Tom Ingram found himself with an incredible weapon in the form of his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N at Oulton Park last weekend, and he used it to devastating effect. In his first eight years in the BTCC, Ingram had never even troubled the podium at the rolling Cheshire parkland venue. This time he scored Excelr8’s maiden BTCC pole on Saturday, finally broke his Oulton jinx to win race one in dominant fashion, and followed it up by keeping Ash Sutton at arm’s length for victory in the second encounter. “The work that has gone on…” he continued. “What happens on Sunday is a byproduct of what goes on in the week, and we’ve worked really hard.”
That second win of the day had taken Ingram level on points with early-season form man Josh Cook at the top of the table, but in the reversed-grid finale came an enormous break for the BTC Racing Honda Civic Type R star thanks to the weekend’s other major story: an enormous accident involving Ingram’s Excelr8 Hyundai teammate Dan Lloyd. The amiable Yorkshireman was fighting for third with Ricky Collard on the exit from the Island hairpin when he was spat into the barriers, and ricocheted back onto the track. Cook’s two closest title
