How Ingram is seeking to reclaim the BTCC crown from Sutton

No longer can Tom Ingram’s name be prefaced with the words ‘reigning British Touring Car champion’, but who’s to say that can’t be the case once again in 2025? After winning the 2022 title in his second season with Excelr8 Motorsport and its Hyundai i30 N Fastback, he fell only just short last term after what on the points chart appeared to be a season-long battle with eventual title winner Ash Sutton, but in reality was usually a forlorn struggle.

Ingram is chipper, as usual. And this time, at Excelr8’s livery launch to celebrate the centenary of title backer Bristol Street Motors, he’s accompanied by his beloved labrador. In fact, this is potentially the first time in Autosport history that a driver has been interviewed while holding a dog on a lead. The amiable Yuri trained as a guide dog, before it became apparent that he had some problems with his sight, and he fell into the arms of willing adopters Ingram and his girlfriend.

Intentional or not, Yuri’s presence bolsters the Ingram image. The 30-year-old was a disciple of Jason Plato’s KX Akademy in his youth, and has been frank that the BTCC’s wins record holder was key in opening his eyes to the importance of maximising his commercial opportunities in this era where high-paid BTCC manufacturer drives are no longer feasible.

But Plato’s embracing of 1990s lad culture for his image would never have fitted the Ingram personality. Instead, he’s the quintessential tea-drinking, biscuit-dunking, cheeky-chappy Englishman – with a dog. Yet he’s fiercely determined.

Take Silverstone last September as an example. This is the event where Sutton screamed his Ford Focus through from 23rd on the grid to victory in just 36 miles of racing. Justifiably, the soon-to-be four-time BTCC champion was hailed as a magician for his sensational racecraft.

Yet Ingram, from 22nd in the starting line-up, had been running ahead of Sutton on the opening lap before he was torpedoed by an out-of-control Team Hard Cupra, rejoined five places behind the Focus, and stormed up to third position, just 1.405 seconds adrift at the chequered flag. Much as they respect each other, does it annoy Ingram that Sutton gets all the plaudits?

Sutton's charge to win at Silverstone was lauded, but Ingram felt he should have won

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

“Yeah of course!” he replies, as Yuri wags his tail at a passer-by. “Silverstone was quite annoying. I was actually disappointed because I was hoping that was going to be our race [as in, a battle between the two of them], because we never actually raced much other than at Donington – we didn’t have many battles on circuit last year. I was a bit disappointed that Ash and I weren’t able to have a doorhandle-to-doorhandle race.

“There were a number of moments last year that I think we probably outperformed, and vice versa. But genuinely I think if you were going to put Jake [Hill] in the same car as Ash, if you were to put me in, we would all have done a good job.

“I’m not taking anything away from Ash in the slightest – he’s very fast, we know that – but he had a strong car last year, he had a good engineer, he had a good team around him, he was driving well. When you’re in that situation it’s a perfect storm, and success breeds success.

"We kind of already knew that we were on the back foot before we’d even begun, so because of that we always knew it was going to be tough. So far our pre-season this year has been strong"
Tom Ingram

“There were moments last year when you think, ‘I could be doing that’, but it’s all right, you pick and choose your battles and know when and when not to say things. He was very, very strong last year, but by no means are he and they unbeatable.”

A number of factors contributed to that ‘perfect storm’ including, appropriately, the dismal British climate. Ingram and his long-time engineer Spencer Aldridge had hit the ground running over the 2021-22 winter in development of the Hyundai to accommodate the new-for-2022 hybrid system, and the extra weight that would entail, to the extent that they were testing with simulated weight almost as soon as the chequered flag dropped on the 2021 season. To that end, they enjoyed the benefit of Aldridge’s work with Speedworks Motorsport, where he had worked on the Toyota hybrid test car before he and Ingram jumped ship to Excelr8 at the end of 2020.

No one stands still in motorsport, and of course Aldridge and the team worked on developments over 2022-23 to try to remain one step ahead, only for Sutton sidekick Antonio Carrozza to produce a masterpiece of redevelopment on the NAPA-liveried Focus. Crucially, that team also got some decent dry-weather testing in…

“If I’m being brutally honest, our pre-season testing was rubbish last year,” explains Ingram. “We got ‘chaosed’ by the weather, and every single place we turned up to we never got any dry running. So we did loads of development to the car, but weren’t actually able to develop the car because it was changeable – it never gave us any meat on the bones to go at it with.

Ingram’s best day of 2023 featured a genuine defeat of Sutton at Donington

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

“So it just meant that we were playing catch-up from the start and because of that, you’re already struggling. We kind of already knew that we were on the back foot before we’d even begun, so because of that we always knew it was going to be tough. So far our pre-season this year has been strong. We’ve already done three days at Anglesey, and we were given summer in Anglesey!”

Indeed, before the catch-up with Ingram, Autosport has been yakking to veteran Excelr8 team manager Marvin Humphries – he’s still yet to follow through on his annual promise to retire! – who has been raving about the early-March test in North Wales with Ingram and Tom Chilton.

“Phenomenal, you could never ask for better pre-season testing days,” continues Ingram. “Three days of consistent, bright sunshine, blue sky, fairly minimal wind. So actually it meant that we could do a bit of pre-season. Because of that we already feel stronger, because we’ve actually had a chance to validate and rectify some of the bits and pieces that we weren’t able to do throughout last year.”

The Hyundai wasn’t exactly slow last year; it was simply not as sharp a weapon as the Ford. That showed up particularly in qualifying, which was more important across the 2022 and 2023 seasons due to the replacement of success ballast for the championship leaders with hybrid boost penalties.

Ingram always raced well last season, somehow clinging onto title contention until the final weekend. But while the competition has been purer with the demise of ballast, it has been noticeably more processional. Has there been any particular area of development to zone in on?

“It’s been a combination of everything really,” says Ingram. “We know that in the BTCC there isn’t a silver bullet; there’s not one thing that you unlock that gives you four tenths of a second. It doesn’t work like that. It’s a number of things all merged together, and that’s everything from the bits of development that we’ve done to the car, to ourselves, the move to Dynamics. All of these bits and pieces that just need to stack up, and if all of those things give you half a tenth, then crikey, we’ve worked a lot over the winter to make sure that we’ve found that.

“I think the focus is on a) consistency, because we know that even last year without the fastest car, we were really the only one to be able to take it to Ash, mostly because of our consistency. So that remains our priority. And b) be faster.

“There were areas in the car last year that were very strong, and there were areas that were a bit weak, and like any development you just make the ones that were strong even stronger, and the ones that were weak better. It’s been a start again with what worked and didn’t work, and do what we need to do, not least from qualifying.”

Collaboration with Dynamics is expected to bring more to the Excelr8 package

Photo by: Excelr8 Motorsport

Ingram’s mention of Team Dynamics highlights the biggest Excelr8 news of the winter: the decision of husband-and-wife owners Antony and Justina Williams to move their BTCC squad from rural Suffolk into the West Midlands workshops of the multiple championship-winning operation. That brings not only lanky three-time champ and Dynamics principal Matt Neal into the fold for advice, but also long-time technical chief Barry Plowman.

On race weekends, Plowman is engineering Chilton, who he ran in a Team Dynamics Honda Civic in 2008; away from events, he’s working with Aldridge. The feeling is that Plowman’s experience is already having an impact on the relatively youthful – and still comparatively inexperienced in title-winning campaigns – combo of Ingram and Aldridge.

“Barry’s a great guy,” asserts Ingram. “I’d argue that we’ve got two of the best engineers in the paddock in the team. Because of that, it’s a very strong place to be. Barry’s had huge amounts of success in the BTCC. He’s been there, he’s seen it, he’s worn the T-shirt and probably bought another five afterwards.

"Between Spencer and Barry, they’ve been two brains merged into one, which is very strong"
Tom Ingram

“The stuff that Barry’s managed to bring to the team is about what we’re doing currently better. There’s always bits we can improve and Barry’s done exactly that – he’s brought stuff in to change the way we either approach things or change the way the car is running with set-up stuff or whatever it may be. Between Spencer and Barry, they’ve been two brains merged into one, which is very strong.”

Ingram may no longer be ‘reigning BTCC champion’, but at least his 2022 success allowed him to cast off his long-time stigma of being ‘the BTCC nearly-man’. He agrees that this made defeat in 2023 easier to swallow.

“Yes I think so,” he answers. “But I feel more hungry to win it now after last year than I kind of ever have done even before I won it, if that makes any sense. I’m trying to… I don’t really know how to word it, but almost put right what we missed out on last year. Not that we were screwed over by any means, but just trying to make better what we did last year. And that’s no one’s fault – it’s just generally we lacked a little bit everywhere, and that’s part of the development race, that’s how it works, that’s what keeps it ticking along and busy for everyone.”

Don’t say it too loudly, but it’s a dog-eat-dog arena out there…

Will Yuri's owner end the upcoming BTCC season with a second title?

Photo by: Excelr8 Motorsport