Three solid top-10 results in the fifth Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship meeting of the season at Croft left Tom Ingram confident that Speedworks Motorsport will visit the podium this year.
The 21-year-old BRDC Superstar was rapid out of the blocks on Saturday morning in free practice, topping the day’s first session but later qualifying 13th to his disappointment.
The Toyota Avensis driver made amends on Sunday by climbing inside the top 10 early on, picking up a pair of eighth place finishes before rounding off the day with seventh in race three, a result he could have repeated in race one but for a tap at the final hairpin from Colin Turkington‘s Volkswagen CC.
“It’s been a really good weekend”, Ingram told The Checkered Flag afterwards. “Qualifying was our only downside. Considering that was the only blip, I’m very pleased with that after a consistent weekend.”
The visit to North Yorkshire appeared to be Ingram and Toyota’s strongest weekend of the season, the former Ginetta GT4 Supercup champion commenting: “100 per cent, yes. Still our time is yet to come, but we’re very happy with how we’ve done.”
The Speedworks man next heads to Snetterton on 8/9 August after the lengthy summer break for the BTCC
paddock, a circuit which Ingram showed pace around last season before his weekend was tarnished by a wheel parting from his Avensis.
With a best BTCC result of fifth to his name, when queried whether he felt a maiden podium finish is a possibility in the remainder of the 2015 campaign, Ingram confidently stated: “Yes I do.
“Like I said, the only blip in performance was that we didn’t have a decent qualifying.”
On intentions of making further progress during the official Dunlop tyre test at Snetterton during the summer break, Ingram added: “We’ll see, but I think that the plan is to check it out. We need to start getting a bit more testing under our belts.
“I’d think that it might be a bit of a struggle for us, but we’ll wait and see.”
