BTCC Brands Hatch: Ingram wins after wonder move on Moffat

Outgoing British Touring Car champion Tom Ingram pulled off a beautiful move to take victory in the first race of the final round at Brands Hatch.

Only Ingram’s Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback and the polesitting Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon of Aiden Moffat used the soft-compound option tyre in this race, with the rest of the field on medium Goodyears.

But Ingram’s pre-weekend position of second in the championship meant he had access to just two laps of TOCA Turbo Boost for the 15 laps, with Moffat on the maximum 10.

Ingram aced the start to sweep ahead of Moffat into Paddock Hill Bend, but the Scot got onto the TTB button as early as possible, on the second lap. The following time around, he slipped down the inside of Ingram into Westfield bend to take the lead.

But even when Moffat was using TTB and Ingram wasn’t, the Audi could only pull out a small chink of daylight over the pursuing Hyundai, which would then close when Moffat stayed off the boost.

On the 11th lap, Ingram went for broke. Around the Grand Prix loop in the woods he jinked around behind Moffat, before finally using TTB for the first time and pulling off a peach of an overtaking move around the outside of Clearways.

Photo by: JEP

All Ingram had to do was make sure he kept Moffat at bay while the chasing Audi had TTB, and that became moot when Moffat was given a five-second penalty for track-limits transgressions.

Shadowing this leading pair was Josh Cook, the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport running extremely well on the medium tyres – and just five laps of TTB. Cook set fastest lap and, with Moffat’s penalty, was elevated to second position – 3.269 seconds behind Ingram.

“That was good fun,” said Ingram, whose win followed up his victory in the finale last time out at Silverstone. “Aiden drove superbly, didn’t put a wheel out of place, and that made it difficult. There was an offset on TTB, so I had to pick my battles a little bit with him.

“Early in the race, there was not much point putting up too much of a fight. And also I was acutely aware of Josh closing fast on the medium tyre. I had 20 seconds of TTB, but I possibly only used six of them to make the overtake! And when Aiden got his penalty, it made my life a little bit easier.”

Ingram’s Excelr8 Hyundai team-mate Ricky Collard got up to fourth at the start, and he stayed just about close enough to the cars at the front of the pack to pip Moffat to third place in the classification, by less than 0.1s, once the Audi’s penalty was applied.

From 11th on the grid, recently crowned five-time champion Ash Sutton had a storming first lap to hoist his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium into sixth. But once everyone else began to use TTB on lap two, Sutton had just one lap available. He made it past Daryl De Leon’s West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport on the sixth lap, and finished fifth.

Photo by: JEP

Another poor start cost Mikey Doble some ground at the start, but the PMR Audi driver passed De Leon to come home sixth – and extend his lead in the Independents championship.

De Leon was seventh, with the Alliance Ford of Dan Cammish eighth – costing the Yorkshireman ground to Ingram in the fight for second in the overall championship. Completing the top 10 were Adam Morgan’s CPRL Mercedes A35 Saloon and the PMR Audi of Dexter Patterson.

Gordon Shedden entered the weekend second to Doble in the Independent points, but a biff from behind shovelled him into Tom Chilton at Druids on the opening lap, popping up the bonnet on the Speedworks Toyota and leading to its retirement.

Charles Rainford, third in the Indie points, clanged the barriers at Dingle Dell after contact from Aron Taylor-Smith’s Speedworks Toyota, although he did continue after losing several laps in the pits.

BTCC Brands Hatch - Race 1 results

RACE1

All Stats

 

Cla	Driver	#		Car	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h	Retirement	Points
1	T. Ingram Team Vertu			Hyundai i30N	15	22'48.825		95.99		20
2	J. Cook Speedworks Corolla Racing			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	15	+3.269 22'52.094	3.269	95.76		17
3	R. Collard Team Vertu			Hyundai i30N	15	+5.782 22'54.607	2.513	95.58		15
4	A. Moffat LKQ Euro Car Parts with Power Maxed Racing			Audi A3 Saloon	15	+5.876 22'54.701	0.094	95.58		13
5	A. Sutton NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus Titanium	15	+7.497 22'56.322	1.621	95.47		11
6	M. Doble LKQ Euro Car Parts with Power Maxed Racing			Audi A3 Saloon	15	+9.305 22'58.130	1.808	95.34		10
7	D. De Leon West Surrey Racing			BMW 330i M Sport	15	+10.479 22'59.304	1.174	95.26		9
8	D. Cammish NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus Titanium	15	+17.257 23'06.082	6.778	94.79		8
9	A. Morgan Cataclean Plato Racing			Mercedes A35 Saloon	15	+20.016 23'08.841	2.759	94.60		7
10	D. Patterson Steel Seal with Power Maxed Racing			Audi A3 Saloon	15	+22.950 23'11.775	2.934	94.41		6
11	D. Lloyd Restart Racing			Hyundai i30N	15	+24.406 23'13.231	1.456	94.31		5
12	D. Rowbottom Cataclean Plato Racing			Mercedes A35 Saloon	15	+25.327 23'14.152	0.921	94.24		4
13	L. Gilbert West Surrey Racing			BMW 330i M Sport	15	+27.387 23'16.212	2.060	94.11		3
14	T. Chilton Team Vertu			Hyundai i30N	15	+31.530 23'20.355	4.143	93.83		2
15	S. Osborne NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus Titanium	15	+33.285 23'22.110	1.755	93.71		1
16	L. Selby NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus Titanium	15	+33.623 23'22.448	0.338	93.69
17	R. Bensley Speedworks Corolla Racing			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	15	+34.026 23'22.851	0.403	93.66
18	C. Smiley Restart Racing			Hyundai i30N	15	+34.257 23'23.082	0.231	93.64
19	N. Halstead Steel Seal with Power Maxed Racing			Audi A3 Saloon	15	+59.029 23'47.854	24.772	92.02
20	N. Hamilton Team Vertu			Hyundai i30N	15	+1'11.278 24'00.103	12.249	91.24
nc	C. Rainford West Surrey Racing			BMW 330i M Sport	7	+8 Laps 23'17.478	8 Laps	43.87
dnf	A. Taylor-Smith Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	3	+12 Laps 4'47.801	4 Laps	91.31	Retirement
dnf	G. Shedden Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	0				Retirement
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