Wednesday, July 20 2016

Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship race winner Tom Ingram is ready to put together a title challenge starting at Snetterton next weekend (30/31 July).

Ingram qualified for the opening round of the season at Brands Hatch on pole position, following this up with his maiden race victory. However, despite taking another pole at Thruxton, his early results were inconsistent, but a recent run has seen him recover to sixth place in the standings, just 45 points off the championship lead.

"The first half of the year has gone very well, but it's very much a case of looking back on what could have been," Tom said. "We'd lost a lot of fights in the first few rounds of the championship, unfortunately. We're not where we want to be, but hey, we're sixth place so far and second in the Independents' standings and we can be very happy so far."

With a good position in the title race from which to launch a title attack in the second half of the season, Tom's confident that his Speedworks-run Toyota Avensis should go well on the long straights and wide range of corners of the Snetterton 300 circuit.

"We should be fairly strong; it should suit us a bit better whereas Croft and Oulton was against the rear-wheel-drive cars, he said. "Unfortunately now Subaru are going to be up there, so they are going to be the ones that we've got to try and beat. For me we've got to focus on points."

Tom's prediction came off the back of the recent BTCC Snetterton test, which he topped, and the 22-year-old thinks that the Norfolk circuit is a good proving ground for the cars.

"Snetterton's good for all sorts of testing that we do, one because of the various different types of corners; high-speed, low-speed and hairpins," he said. "It's very difficult to get a car set up perfectly because it's such a diverse place. I always enjoy driving Snetterton, there have been some big improvements since the extension's come on. It should be a good one for us."

Tickets for the BTCC at Snetterton on 30/31 July are available from £27, with free admission for under-13s. For more information call our sales team on 0843 453 9000 or click here.