Tom Ingram has been crowned the 2013 Michelin Ginetta GT Supercup champion following a dominant lights-to-flag victory in Round 23 at Silverstone.
The JHR Developments ace started the 24-lap encounter from pole position, his fifth in the last six meetings, and went on to head Pepe Massot throughout, a relatively comfortable run to the flag giving him his tenth win of the season and with it the coveted title.
“I’m so emotional, it’s ridiculous,” an elated Ingram told thecheckeredflag.co.uk. “The race went perfectly, I managed to get the break and get away. It felt like the longest race of my life, I was counting down the laps and it just didn’t seem to stop.
“Thank you so much to KX Akademy, SKYCIG, Hansford Sensors and everyone else who’s helped me out this year, and credit to the JHR boys, I’m not working with a team, I’m working with my best friends. Every weekend I can go out and just enjoy it, and it’s been amazing. It feels perfect.”
Ingram’s dominance came under threat heading into Copse for the first time though, with fellow front-row starter Massot getting a nose down the inside, however he had to back off and slot into second.
That proved to be Massot’s only chance of taking the advantage from his team-mate, the Spaniard quickly breaking away from the pack behind, leading to a lonely, yet comfortable run to second at the flag.
Rob Boston started the race from third, however a poor opening lap saw him drop back to seventh behind Matt Nicoll-Jones, Jamie Orton, Tom Oliphant and Andrew Watson.
After briefly falling behind reigning champion Carl Breeze, Boston began a superb recovery drive, passing Breeze back almost straight away before following Watson past Oliphant, before passing Watson himself.
A failed challenge for third by Orton left him defenceless from a determined Boston, the KX Akademy racer then passing Nicoll-Jones into copse on lap fifteen to cap off a great drive, his third place making it a superb one-two-three for the JHR outfit.
Orton also passed Nicoll-Jones to take fourth, with the latter just fending off Breeze to take fifth at the flag, Breeze having traded places with Carl Boardley a couple of times over the final few laps.
Watson and Oliphant ran in the thick of the battle for a top six finish throughout the race, however five second penalties for exceeding the track limits dropped them to twelfth and thirteenth in the final results respectively.
This meant that Sean Huyton, guest driver Alex MacDowall and Reece Somerfield completed the top ten behind Boardley, with Colin White eleventh. Fergus Walkinshaw took fourteenth meanwhile following a monumental effort by the FW Motorsport team, who changed his engine and gearbox in the break after qualifying.
In the G50 class, Louise Richardson had a rollercoaster race. Problems on the opening lap dropped her from class pole into a distant fifth, however a superb recovery drive saw her fight her way back through to take her second ever G50 class win.
Will Burns took second, despite a five second penalty for exceeding track limits, with Rob Gaffney completing the class podium ahead of Norwegian duo Stefan Feet and Andre Falkenhaug.
Full race results can be found here: http://tsl-timing.com/toca/2013/133903g50.pdf