BTCC Donington Park: Ingram leads practice from Doble

Reigning British Touring Car champion Tom Ingram topped free practice for the seventh round of the 2026 season on the Donington Park Grand Prix circuit.

Ingram, lying second in the points, has a mountain to climb to catch runaway championship leader Ash Sutton, but looked on good form at the wheel of his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback.

He set a 1m33.644s on medium compound Goodyear tyres – with medium and hard mandated for the competitive elements of the weekend.

For free practice, competitors were also able to use soft rubber carried over from previous race weekends – Ingram had a set of these bolted on, and lowered the standard to 1m33.490s.

Ingram’s earlier medium best meant that the pre-qualifying bragging rights looked to be heading his way, only for Mikey Doble to stamp in a 1m33.592s at the chequered flag in his Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon – although that wasn’t the quickest time of the session, it was the fastest on tyres eligible for use in competition.

Doble had been nowhere prior to that effort, his previous best 1.2s slower.

Tom Ingram, Team VERTU

Photo by: JEP

The rebranded CPRL Mercedes A35 Saloon team looked on strong form on its first weekend without team founder Jason Plato. Dan Rowbottom improved to third fastest late in the session, while Adam Morgan was fifth.

In between the Mercs – which were running in a new black livery this weekend – was the West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport of Charles Rainford, who was at the sharp end all session and ended up fourth.

Sixth was the Speedworks Motorsport-run Laser Tools Toyota Corolla GR Sport of Aron Taylor-Smith, with Sutton in the fastest of the Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titaniums in seventh. Sutton also popped in the fastest time on hard tyres at the end of the session, with a 1m34.066s.

Next up were two more of the Excelr8 Hyundais, with Ricky Collard eighth and Tom Chilton ninth.

Completing the top 10 with a last-gasp effort on soft tyres was Josh Cook in his Speedworks Toyota. The West Countryman caused the only red flag of the session when a crank sensor problem stranded him on the track, and returned to the fray with just a couple of laps remaining at the end of the session.

Apart from the CPRL Mercs, another pair of cars running a different livery this weekend are the Alliance Fords of Dan Cammish and Sam Osborne – Valvoline paintwork meant some were confused when Paul Radisich didn’t jump out of either car at the end of the session!

BTCC Donington Park - Practice results

FiP

All Stats

 

Cla	Driver	#		Car	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h
1	T. Ingram Team Vertu	80		Hyundai i30N	19	1'33.490		95.778
2	M. Doble LKQ Euro Car Parts with Power Maxed Racing	88		Audi A3 Saloon	16	+0.102 1'33.592	0.102	95.674
3	D. Rowbottom Cataclean Plato Racing	32		Mercedes A35 Saloon	18	+0.226 1'33.716	0.124	95.547
4	C. Rainford West Surrey Racing	99		BMW 330i M Sport	22	+0.326 1'33.816	0.100	95.445
5	A. Morgan Cataclean Plato Racing	33		Mercedes A35 Saloon	19	+0.339 1'33.829	0.013	95.432
6	A. Taylor-Smith Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	50		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	16	+0.459 1'33.949	0.120	95.310
7	A. Sutton NAPA Racing UK	116		Ford Focus Titanium	17	+0.463 1'33.953	0.004	95.306
8	R. Collard Team Vertu	11		Hyundai i30N	18	+0.523 1'34.013	0.060	95.245
9	T. Chilton Team Vertu	3		Hyundai i30N	19	+0.599 1'34.089	0.076	95.168
10	J. Cook Speedworks Corolla Racing	66		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	7	+0.611 1'34.101	0.012	95.156
11	D. Cammish NAPA Racing UK	27		Ford Focus Titanium	17	+0.646 1'34.136	0.035	95.121
12	G. Shedden Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	52		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	15	+0.790 1'34.280	0.144	94.975
13	S. Osborne NAPA Racing UK	77		Ford Focus Titanium	20	+0.809 1'34.299	0.019	94.956
14	D. De Leon West Surrey Racing	2		BMW 330i M Sport	17	+0.921 1'34.411	0.112	94.844
15	L. Selby NAPA Racing UK	15		Ford Focus Titanium	20	+1.154 1'34.644	0.233	94.610
16	C. Smiley Restart Racing	22		Hyundai i30N	18	+1.207 1'34.697	0.053	94.557
17	D. Lloyd Restart Racing	123		Hyundai i30N	15	+1.234 1'34.724	0.027	94.530
18	A. Moffat LKQ Euro Car Parts with Power Maxed Racing	16		Audi A3 Saloon	16	+1.432 1'34.922	0.198	94.333
19	D. Patterson Steel Seal with Power Maxed Racing	17		Audi A3 Saloon	14	+1.581 1'35.071	0.149	94.185
20	L. Gilbert West Surrey Racing	29		BMW 330i M Sport	18	+1.934 1'35.424	0.353	93.837
21	R. Bensley Speedworks Corolla Racing	7		Toyota Corolla GR Sport	17	+2.015 1'35.505	0.081	93.757
22	N. Hamilton Team Vertu	28		Hyundai i30N	18	+2.192 1'35.682	0.177	93.584
23	N. Halstead Steel Seal with Power Maxed Racing	55		Audi A3 Saloon	18	+3.392 1'36.882	1.200	92.425
View full results