Ingram confirms front-runner status as Ginettas head for mid-season break

Tue 16th June 2009 Tom Ingram underlined his status as one of the very brightest young motorsport talents Britain has to offer with another front-running performance in the Ginetta Junior Championship at Croft – but for the second meeting in a row, the High Wycombe star left counting the cost of significant damage from an incident that was not his fault.

Tom headed to the North Yorkshire circuit off the back of a rollercoaster ride at Oulton Park, where he had stormed to a stunning double pole position in qualifying – in just his fourth outing in cars since graduating from karts, with the title of British Karting Champion to his name in 2006 – only to be unceremoniously removed from the action when he found himself unwittingly caught up in another driver’s accident on race day that tore the front end of the #80 machine apart and left his family and Tockwith Motorsports team facing an all-night repair job.

That meant his aim for Croft – one of a majority of tracks on the calendar of which the rookie had no previous experience – was to secure a solid haul of points, and after proving to be a top ten fixture throughout practice, he wound up an impressive sixth-quickest at the end of the opening day amongst the slightly depleted 18-strong pack, barely six tenths of a second shy of the top spot.

From there, the 15-year-old headed into qualifying with high hopes – and third and fourth positions on the grid for the two races, just half a second from pole, would not disappoint. His supreme consistency, indeed – one of his qualities right the way through karting – saw his two fastest efforts separated by a mere two thousandths of a second, and it is consistency, at the end of the day, that wins championships.

“After the shunt at Oulton we were just trying to get some points back,” he acknowledged. “Of course I wanted to finish as high as I could, but the primary goal was to get some more points on the board. The steering was still a tiny bit out, but there’s nothing you can really do about that and you’ve just got to drive around it. I didn’t feel like it was hindering me at all, and that apart the car felt really good.

“I had been watching YouTube beforehand to try to learn the track a bit. Although it’s quite tight and twisty, it’s still flat-out in places too; there are a lot of corners where you need to be late on the brakes and make sure you get the apexes spot-on. It’s quite a complicated circuit to learn at first.

“Practice was a good start, but no-one really looks at the timesheets in testing and I wasn’t entirely sure what we could do in qualifying – after the double pole at Oulton, nothing was ever going to be as good as that! I was just aiming to get a decent starting position really from where to battle for points; I was hoping to be inside the top five, but it was still quite a surprise to get third and fourth.”

It also meant that Tom has now qualified inside the top four more times than not during his fledgling car racing career to-date, with six top four starts from ten races and an average grid position of 7th, an incredible achievement given his comparative lack of experience relative to the opposition, many of whom are in their second year in the series. And the first race at Croft would only serve to corroborate that scintillating form...

“I got a blinding start and jumped straight through the middle of the two Tollbar cars on the front row and into second,” he related. “I then got into the tow of Aaron Williamson in the lead and was going to try and make a move into Tower, but he defended too well. After that I just concentrated on trying to keep my speed up to maintain the pressure on him, but on the next lap Jake Hill got past me, which dropped me to third.

“I was lining him up to get him back again, but then I lost two more places at the last hairpin – one driver came through and because that pushed me off-line another was able to follow. After that I had (championship leader) Sarah Moore about a second-and-a-half behind me for the whole race, always in my mirrors, and I knew if I made just one small mistake she would be on me, so I had to try and focus on not making any slip-ups whilst closing on the guys ahead at the same time.

“On the penultimate lap the leader Chris Swanwick went off at Sunny Out, which gave us all a run on him. Thomas Howard went down the inside of him and I tried to do the same, but I wasn’t quite close enough to make it stick and we both ran slightly wide and lost a bit of momentum. At the same place on the last lap Swanwick got Howard back again, and then going into the final hairpin they were both defending really hard.

“I was hoping they would knock each other wide, and in any case I knew I was probably going to get a better run than at least one of them out of the hairpin. I managed to draft Howard over the line by less than four hundredths of a second... I was pleased, but at the same time a little bit disappointed because I would have liked to have got another podium after making such a good start.”

Nonetheless, just 2.7 seconds shy of victory at the chequered flag marked the closest he has been to the winner to-date, and as in qualifying he crossed the line as the best-placed of the six Tockwith competitors. A rostrum finish was firmly in his sights in race two, but then disaster would strike, with a nudge from behind on the opening lap leading to the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year’s car being collected by another, damaging the rear end, radiator and water pipes and leaving the bonnet in four pieces. The misfortune prompted championship co-ordinator Stewart Linn to muse that Tom must be the unluckiest driver in the field, having twice now seen his car destroyed through no blame of his own.

“I think this is the most DNFs I’ve ever had!” rued the Monodraught, Joe Bloggs and Conway House Dental Practice-backed ace. “You can get away with damage a lot more in karting – it’s not so easy in cars. Overall, though, I think it was a good weekend, because again I showed I’ve got the pace to be up there.”