After a challenging weekend in the British Touring Car Championship at Snetterton, Team VERTU’s Tom Ingram has fallen a further ten points behind Ash Sutton and admitted that his car is lacking the power of his rivals.
Ingram went into the weekend needing a significant boost to his fortunes, having suffered from an alternator failure at the season-opening weekend at Donington Park, before falling further behind on points at Brands Hatch when he was again out-scored by Sutton.
The reigning champion put his Hyundai in fourth on the grid for Saturday afternoon’s qualifying race, going on to take the finish in third after rival Sutton suffered from a puncture early in the race.
That gave him a second-row starting position for Sunday’s opening race, albeit with only two laps of TOCA Turbo Boost at his disposal. Ingram nonetheless progressed forward, passing Josh Cook for second on the opening lap before holding station behind the on-form BMW of Charles Rainford to secure second.
Forced to run the medium-compound tyres in race two due to his finishing position, Ingram lost out to Daryl De Leon’s BMW briefly at the start before reclaiming the position, then going on to take the lead from Rainford a lap later.
However, Ingram soon suffered from an alternator failure which deprived him of power steering on the then-hottest day of the year. Locking up his brakes at two-thirds distance at the Wilson hairpin when under pressure from Sutton, Ingram dropped to fifth, before his i30 stopped completely exiting the Esses with just over two laps to go.
That left the 32-year-old to start from the back for race three, but on the soft tyre, Ingram made light work of scything through the field, and was up to tenth by lap two.
He continued his rapid progress, and by lap ten was challenging Sutton for second. Try as he might, Ingram couldn’t find a way past and had to settle for third – or so he thought. He was later handed a ten-second penalty for exceeding track limits, demoting him to eighth.
That penalty also means Ingram is now 57 points adrift of Sutton, who continued his impeccable start to the year with another victory of his own in race two.
“I don’t really know what to say – another weekend full of the highs and lows of motorsport,” said Ingram. “The car felt good the whole way through and I was happy with Saturday’s results.
“To qualify fourth was positive given our very limited TTB, and after a fairly spicy and entertaining first few laps in the ‘Race to Pole’, I was pleased to keep Dan [Cammish] behind with his extra deployment – I had to be reasonably tactical there.
“I needed to try to make progress early on in race one on Sunday, and I managed to get Josh quite quickly, which was crucial.
“There was then a brief moment where I thought, ‘do I go after Charles?’ but thankfully there was an adult inside my brain rather than a child and I swiftly told myself, ‘no, that’s silly!’
“We know the BMW has been the car to beat around Snetterton in recent years – especially when it’s hot – and I was also conscious of having to nurse the tyres a bit as you can’t go hell-for-leather in conditions like that.
“With Ash down the field, it was important to be sensible and bag as many points as possible – and in that respect, second place was a really good result.
“In race two, I got a warning on the dash after a few laps saying, ‘battery voltage low’, which meant I lost all power steering.
“It’s hard enough to drive around Snetterton in such intense heat, but doing so without power steering is pretty brutal and my shoulders took quite some punishment! I could see the voltage dropping lower and lower, and then the car just stopped.
“To suffer our second alternator failure of the year was tough to take and meant we haemorrhaged another big chunk of points after the ones we had already conceded at Donington and Brands Hatch, but there’s only so much you can control in this game and sometimes when things go wrong, there’s simply nothing you can do.
“I got my head back down again for race three, focussing on the positives to see what we could salvage from the situation with ten laps of boost, a fast car and the soft tyre.
“It was fun fighting through the field, and I was proper chuffed to finish third from 21st until we received the penalty, which was a real kick in the teeth.”
Ingram pointed out a perceived lack of power exiting the corners in his Hyundai compared to his chief rival’s car, which was particularly apparent at the power-hungry Norfolk venue.
“More significantly, the end of the race clearly showed we’re playing second fiddle out of the corners at the moment; I would catch Ash going into them but then had nothing for him down the straights, even with full deployment.
“Unfortunately, we can’t hold a candle to their engine performance, so we’ve got to try to make up the time in other ways and we will work hard to do that.
“Team VERTU did a sterling job as ever and we will come out all guns blazing at Oulton Park!”