BTCC Donington Park: Ingram stripped of win

Tom Ingram has been stripped of his victory in the first British Touring Car Championship race of the day at the Donington Park opener.

The reigning champion’s Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback was found to have overboosted to a significant degree during the race.

It hands victory to the Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon of Mikey Doble, with four-time champion Ash Sutton moving up to second in his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium.

Ingram is not the only driver to have been hit with penalties for overboosting this weekend. Adam Morgan, whose Plato Racing Mercedes A35 Saloon would have moved up to third, was given a five-second penalty for a more minor transgression. Charles Rainford therefore inherits third place with his West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport.

This is the first BTCC weekend run to the series’ new Closed Loop Boost Scrutineering (CLBS) protocols, an automated system designed “to keep engine boost levels fair and consistent across the grid”.

It replaces the former system, where BTCC technical staff would delve through the data from cars after qualifying sessions or races to find any breaches.

Under the new system, teams are notified immediately of any overboost, and ‘pay back’ for this via a temporary reduction of boost.

The problem for Morgan, and also for Daryl De Leon in Saturday’s qualifying race, where a five-second penalty cost the WSR BMW driver 10th place, was that their respective overboosts happened within seconds of the finish, allowing no time to reduce the boost in compensation. Morgan also claimed that he was stripped of three laptimes in qualifying due to overboosts.

Ingram’s is understood to be a more serious case.

In an explanatory statement released before the weekend about CLBS, BTCC technical chief Sam Riches said: “In races, a driver must not finish while still in a penalty state. If they do, they will receive a time penalty, and in more serious cases disqualification.

“Overall, CLBS ensures that boost levels remain tightly controlled, any advantage from overboost is immediately corrected, and competition stays fair for all teams and drivers.”