BTCC Donington Park: Ingram’s Hyundai tops practice with lap record pace

Ingram whizzed his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N around the Leicestershire parkland venue in 1m08.792s during the early-morning 40-minute session.

That was just below the qualifying lap record despite the 70kg increase in base weight of the cars due to the implementation of the new hybrid systems, and put him on top of the times by a massive 0.368 seconds.

Ingram also set a 1m09.154s that was quicker than the best anyone else could manage, which was the 1m09.160s of BTCC returnee Dan Cammish at the wheel of the lead Motorbase Performance Ford Focus.

“The car felt absolutely fantastic,” smiled Ingram of his FP1 effort. “It was nice to get out of the car and say, ‘What do we need to improve?’, and, ‘Well, it’s not a lot.’

“The balance was nice, but there’s always more to come and I expect we’ll see lap times in the mid-1m08s in qualifying.”

Ingram went for a set-up change in the second session, in which he was sixth: “We just wanted to try something we’ve wanted to try for a while and get the chance to have a crack at it, but we’ll go back to what we had for qualifying.”

Cammish headed reigning champion Ash Sutton in a 2-3 for the NAPA-liveried Motorbase Fords in the first session; Sutton later went quickest in the lunchtime period, but with a lap 0.007s slower than he had managed in the morning.

PLUS: The Ford BTCC superteam combining two reigning TOCA champions

The leading BMW 330e M Sport was the Ciceley Motorsport car of Adam Morgan, who was in fourth position in the morning.

The BTCC's hybrid era got underway in earnest, the Cosworth kit visible in Colin Turkington's WSR BMW

Photo by: JEP

Runner-up in the second session, and boosting him to fifth overall across the 80 minutes of free practice, was an impressive effort for Ricky Collard, who is embarking on his first full BTCC season with the Speedworks Motorsport-run Toyota Corolla team.

Next up were two more drivers who set their best times in the opening period – Dan Lloyd with the second of the Excelr8 Hyundais, and Jake Hill in the best of the West Surrey Racing-run BMWs.

Gordon Shedden went third in the second session with his Team Dynamics Honda Civic Type R, just ahead of the WSR BMWs of Colin Turkington and Stephen Jelley, and this trio rounded out the top 10 overall.

George Gamble was comfortably in the top 10 early on, in seventh place, for his BTCC debut at the Ciceley BMW squad, but fell just outside overall thanks to those late improvers.

Free practice was a disaster for Josh Cook with his BTC Racing Honda – he coasted to a halt on his out-lap in FP1 due to installation issues resulting from an overnight engine change, then smacked into a tyre stack at the chicane while avoiding another car, causing damage to the Civic.

The team got the car repaired for FP2, in which Cook failed to complete a flying lap.

Team-mate Jade Edwards caused the second of the two red flags in FP2 thanks to an off at Redgate.

BTCC Donington Park  - FP2 results

Cla	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Ashley Sutton	21	1'09.176
2	Ricky Collard	15	1'09.229	0.053
3	Gordon Shedden	15	1'09.315	0.139
4	Colin Turkington	20	1'09.324	0.148
5	Stephen Jelley	16	1'09.383	0.207
6	Tom Ingram	15	1'09.433	0.257
7	Daniel Lloyd	18	1'09.480	0.304
8	Dan Cammish	18	1'09.524	0.348
9	Adam Morgan	18	1'09.531	0.355
10	Rory Butcher	16	1'09.536	0.360
11	Michael Crees	14	1'09.575	0.399
12	Jason Plato	16	1'09.620	0.444
13	George Gamble	16	1'09.625	0.449
14	Daniel Rowbottom	12	1'09.634	0.458
15	Jake Hill	10	1'09.692	0.516
16	Aron Taylor-Smith	18	1'09.865	0.689
17	Jade Edwards	13	1'09.866	0.690
18	Tom Chilton	14	1'09.874	0.698
19	Bobby Thompson	11	1'09.969	0.793
20	Ollie Jackson	19	1'09.971	0.795
21	Dexter Patterson	15	1'10.481	1.305
22	Sam Osborne	18	1'10.535	1.359
23	Ash Hand	15	1'10.637	1.461
24	Aiden Moffat	10	1'10.653	1.477
25	Jack Butel	15	1'11.095	1.919
26	Rick Parfitt Jr.	12	1'12.426	3.250
27	Nicolas Hamilton	10	1'12.841	3.665
28	Josh Cook	2
View full results

BTCC Donington Park  - FP1 results

Cla	Driver	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Tom Ingram	19	1'08.792
2	Dan Cammish	16	1'09.160	0.368
3	Ashley Sutton	19	1'09.169	0.377
4	Adam Morgan	18	1'09.193	0.401
5	Daniel Lloyd	21	1'09.233	0.441
6	Jake Hill	21	1'09.315	0.523
7	George Gamble	19	1'09.395	0.603
8	Gordon Shedden	19	1'09.419	0.627
9	Rory Butcher	17	1'09.428	0.636
10	Stephen Jelley	24	1'09.480	0.688
11	Colin Turkington	22	1'09.483	0.691
12	Jason Plato	12	1'09.537	0.745
13	Ollie Jackson	18	1'09.826	1.034
14	Aron Taylor-Smith	19	1'09.871	1.079
15	Michael Crees	18	1'09.975	1.183
16	Ricky Collard	19	1'10.017	1.225
17	Josh Cook	11	1'10.020	1.228
18	Bobby Thompson	17	1'10.055	1.263
19	Jade Edwards	19	1'10.164	1.372
20	Aiden Moffat	21	1'10.198	1.406
21	Ash Hand	16	1'10.280	1.488
22	Sam Osborne	21	1'10.303	1.511
23	Dexter Patterson	20	1'10.355	1.563
24	Tom Chilton	15	1'10.417	1.625
25	Nicolas Hamilton	24	1'10.743	1.951
26	Daniel Rowbottom	12	1'11.106	2.314
27	Jack Butel	18	1'11.307	2.515
28	Rick Parfitt Jr.	19	1'11.875	3.083
View full results