Chris Ingram had a reason to celebrate after the 2017 FIA European Rally Championship final round at Rally Liepāja as he secured the ERC Junior Under 27 championship title.
Along with bragging rights, the 23-year-old takes home the prize fund of €100,000, which will go towards an R5 drive in ERC next season.
“I can’t put it into words to be honest.” Ingram said, talking about taking the championship. “I work so hard to go rallying, finding sponsors.
“Luckily Opel gave me an incredible opportunity but to have that prize fund to be able to take the step to R5 and hopefully join these guys is massive. I can’t wait. Bring it on.”
Heading in to the final round there was a four-way battle for the ERC Junior Under 27 title, showing the depth of the series in full.
“It’s been very competitive at the start to be honest. At Opel we thought we’d just dominate but we’ve had good competition from the other guys as well.
“I didn’t really know what was going to happen here. Jari [Huttunen] was really strong but then he had some bad luck. But we also had some bad luck earlier in the year so I’m just really happy to take the win finally.”
