Race report

BTCC Silverstone: Ingram victorious in wet finale

Tom Ingram boosted his charge for the BTCC runner-up spot with victory in the wet final race at Silverstone

Outgoing British Touring Car Championship title holder Tom Ingram pepped up his charge for 2026 series runner-up with victory in a wet Silverstone finale.

Ingram’s Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback had been drawn on the reversed-grid front row and had the full complement of 14 laps of TOCA Turbo Boost, so he was always a favourite for honours. But the deterioration in weather conditions suddenly factored in Ash Sutton, winner of a fifth BTCC title earlier in the day, despite his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium’s starting position of ninth and just four laps of TTB.

The task for Ingram looked harder at the start, when poleman Aiden Moffat and Aron Taylor-Smith beat him away from the start and Dan Rowbottom then demoted him at Becketts. “I just got bundled out a bit,” he explained.

Ingram’s fightback began on the second lap. Rowbottom’s CPRL Mercedes A35 Saloon had demoted Taylor-Smith’s Speedworks Motorsport-run Toyota Corolla GR Sport at Luffield for the lead on the opening tour, and next time around Moffat’s Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon dived inside the Irishman for second at the Brooklands left-hander. Ingram then went around the outside of Taylor-Smith at Luffield to move up to third.

Rowbottom led the first five laps, before Moffat repassed him at Brooklands. Ingram was next to pass the Mercedes, the duo running side by side for three corners before the Hyundai swept around the outside at the high-speed Copse Corner.

At half-distance, Ingram repeated that move beautifully to wrest the lead from Moffat and take an advantage he never lost.

Photo by: JEP

Sutton was following Ingram up the order, and soon he also passed Moffat. But he was having to save his TTB and, by the time he was on parity with Ingram, the gap was out to around five seconds with just three laps remaining.

Ingram therefore came home 4.123 seconds clear of new champion Sutton, and has cut the deficit for second in the points to Cammish, who finished fifth, to five points.

“We’ve needed a good result for quite a while, haven’t we?” said Ingram. “So it feels a bit emotional to get one. We’ve worked hard, kept on plodding along, kept our heads down.”

Of the conditions, he added: “It was OK. We’ve had a couple of years of monsoon conditions here. If anything it was starting to dry up a little bit by the end of the race.”

Gordon Shedden was another on a charge, passing Laser Tools team-mate Taylor-Smith for fourth and then moving onto the tail of Moffat. But Shedden’s bid at Becketts with six laps remaining sent the Toyota wide. The Scottish veteran clambered back onto the circuit and quickly repassed Taylor-Smith, but could not quite catch Moffat by the finish.

As Taylor-Smith fell down the order to eighth, Cammish rose to fifth in his Alliance Ford – that was a good recovery after a poor start, thought to be due to his positioning on oil from the earlier F4 startline crash, had dropped him to a first-lap position of 10th. Behind him, Tom Chilton (Excelr8 Hyundai) just held off Josh Cook (Speedworks Toyota) for sixth.

Completing the top 10 were the CPRL Mercs of Rowbottom and Adam Morgan, who faded as the race wore on. Early leader Rowbottom’s set-up was ill-suited to the conditions, while Morgan, fifth on the first lap, suffered a fogging up windscreen.

BTCC Silverstone - Race 3 results

RACE3

All Stats

Cla	Driver	Car	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h	Points
1	T. Ingram Team Vertu	Hyundai i30N	22	23'26.055		92.40	20
2	A. Sutton NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus Titanium	22	+4.123 23'30.178	4.123	92.13	17
3	A. Moffat LKQ Euro Car Parts with Power Maxed Racing	Audi A3 Saloon	22	+11.312 23'37.367	7.189	91.66	15
4	G. Shedden Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	22	+11.621 23'37.676	0.309	91.64	13
5	D. Cammish NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus Titanium	22	+14.150 23'40.205	2.529	91.48	11
6	T. Chilton Team Vertu	Hyundai i30N	22	+15.907 23'41.962	1.757	91.36	10
7	J. Cook Speedworks Corolla Racing	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	22	+15.994 23'42.049	0.087	91.36	9
8	A. Taylor-Smith Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	22	+16.712 23'42.767	0.718	91.31	8
9	D. Rowbottom Cataclean Plato Racing	Mercedes A35 Saloon	22	+18.632 23'44.687	1.920	91.19	7
10	A. Morgan Cataclean Plato Racing	Mercedes A35 Saloon	22	+20.228 23'46.283	1.596	91.09	6
11	C. Rainford West Surrey Racing	BMW 330i M Sport	22	+21.204 23'47.259	0.976	91.03	5
12	D. De Leon West Surrey Racing	BMW 330i M Sport	22	+23.883 23'49.938	2.679	90.86	4
13	S. Osborne NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus Titanium	22	+24.824 23'50.879	0.941	90.80	3
14	C. Smiley Restart Racing	Hyundai i30N	22	+25.654 23'51.709	0.830	90.74	2
15	L. Gilbert West Surrey Racing	BMW 330i M Sport	22	+27.143 23'53.198	1.489	90.65	1
16	D. Lloyd Restart Racing	Hyundai i30N	22	+28.363 23'54.418	1.220	90.57
17	M. Doble LKQ Euro Car Parts with Power Maxed Racing	Audi A3 Saloon	22	+30.692 23'56.747	2.329	90.42
18	R. Bensley Speedworks Corolla Racing	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	22	+32.084 23'58.139	1.392	90.34
19	D. Patterson Steel Seal with Power Maxed Racing	Audi A3 Saloon	22	+34.040 24'00.095	1.956	90.21
20	N. Hamilton Team Vertu	Hyundai i30N	22	+34.421 24'00.476	0.381	90.19
21	L. Selby NAPA Racing UK	Ford Focus Titanium	22	+34.488 24'00.543	0.067	90.19
22	N. Halstead Steel Seal with Power Maxed Racing	Audi A3 Saloon	22	+40.605 24'06.660	6.117	89.81
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