A weekend that culminated in two failures to finish and a hefty slice of damage might not perhaps be regarded as the most successful of endeavours, but for Tom Ingram, such ill-fortune in the fifth meeting of the 2011 Ginetta G50 Cup at Croft failed to detract from a race that he described as his finest triumph of the season and one that reaffirmed his status as the fastest and most accomplished driver in the field.
Perennially underfunded, Tom’s participation at Croft came about only when his team Plans Motorsport generously stepped in at the last minute to save the day. Having stormed to six victories from the opening 11 races and established a commanding 81-point championship lead, the talented young High Wycombe star arrived targeting a trio of solid results, in the knowledge that such was his advantage in the title standings, consistent podiums and points-scoring finishes should henceforth be enough.
What’s more, the 17-year-old had invariably performed well around the North Yorkshire circuit in the past, qualifying third and fourth there during his maiden campaign of car racing in 2009 and claiming a brace of rostrum finishes 12 months later.
“I really love Croft,” he enthused. “It’s one of my favourites. I’ve always been quick there but have never had much luck. It seems to suit my driving style quite well; you have to be really precise and make sure you hit all the apexes right. It’s quite tight, twisty and technical with effectively just one long straight, so there’s not a huge amount of opportunity to relax around the lap. I need to say a massive ‘thank you’, as well, to Plans Motorsport for getting me out at the weekend – without their help, I wouldn’t have been racing.”
Lapping a close second-quickest during Friday practice without even running on new tyres, when a fresh set of rubber was bolted on for qualifying the next day, the BRDC Rising Star was fastest straight out-of-the-box, comfortably securing pole position to the tune of three tenths of a second, and eighth overall in amongst some of the more powerful Ginetta G55s. If single-lap pace is the most accurate barometer of a driver’s raw speed, then the statistics are telling indeed; in 2011 to-date, Tom Ingram has clinched five successive poles out of five.
“Even on my quickest lap I made a small mistake when I ran a little bit wide and missed the apex through one of the corners,” he mused, “so I knew there was another tenth or two to come and I was confident I could maintain a consistent pace throughout the races.
“I got off to a decent start in the first of them and made some good progress on the opening lap. I managed to hold onto the G50 lead and then overtook a couple of G55s to give myself a little bit of breathing space. After that, I just kept pushing to try to extend the gap, whilst not taking too much life out of my tyres.
“With the pace we had, I was really gaining on some of the other G55s as the race went on, and I managed to get past them as quickly as possible so as not to risk getting held up too much. I was able to pick people off when I wanted to and I even overtook some of the faster guys – including Stefan Hodgetts and Tim Harvey. With two laps to go, I was up to fifth place and closing in on two G55s ahead, and with just one more lap I reckon I would have been right on the back of them and pushing for an overall podium.”
Given that Harvey is a former British Touring Car Champion, twice a title-winner in the Porsche Carrera Cup GB and a man with some three decades of racing experience behind him, for a driver in only his third year of competition in cars to pass him on-track is no mean feat indeed. In an incredible performance, Tom took the chequered flag less than two-and-a-half seconds adrift of an outright rostrum – and eight-and-a-half ahead of his nearest G50 pursuer. It was, quite simply, a cut above.
“It was good fun overtaking people like Stefan and Tim, especially being in a lower class,” confessed the former Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year. “It was admittedly a bit nerve-wracking to be really mixing it with the G55s like that, particularly knowing I couldn’t afford to get into any trouble, but I just had to keep my nose clean. I was really pleased to get the win, and it was even more special to have achieved it whilst battling against cars from a higher class. It was brilliant – definitely my best race of the season so far.”
Increasing his championship lead to 96 points – almost three race wins – into the bargain, sadly, that would be the final highlight of the weekend. With the weather frustratingly unpredictable ahead of race two, Tom initially climbed to a superb second overall and harried the G55 leader for a while, but as the track dried out, being on wet tyres severely counted against him and he slipped down the order.
When the rain re-materialised a third of the way through, he rubbed his hands in glee, with the scene set for an inspired fightback – but no sooner had that fightback begun than the reigning Ginetta Junior Champion and ex-British Karting Champion found himself unceremoniously harpooned out-of-contention by an errant rival and shunted into the unforgiving tyre barriers. The fact that his assailant was excluded from the results was little consolation, for it didn’t give him back the points he had lost.
Although the damage was principally cosmetic, unbeknown to Tom and the team, the steering rack had also taken a knock, and the Bucks speed demon discovered as soon as he took to the track in race three that it was pulling to the right.
The upshot was that when he got to the first left-hander on lap one, the back end of the car snapped away from him and spat him off the circuit and heavily into the tyres at precisely the same spot as the accident in race two. With the grass still very wet from the earlier rain, he was a passenger all the way to the impact. Quipping that ‘as soon as I went off, I just thought, not again’, whilst he valiantly tried to carry on, the car was no longer in a state to be driven.
“It was one of the best days of the season followed immediately by one of the worst – straight from a high to a low – but that’s motor racing,” Tom mused in conclusion. “We’ve been very lucky for the past year-and-a-half – we got through the whole of 2010 without any damage at all – so I guess it was always going to happen at some stage.”
In the circumstances a case of ‘damage limitation’ given that the Race Drivers Inc. member still has a 42-point championship lead – 60 on dropped scores – he is now vowing to put the weekend behind him, learn from the mistakes made and come back out fighting again in the next round...although with a seven-week break before the second half of the campaign revs into life at Snetterton in August, the chief task for Tom Ingram is to try to raise sufficient funding to be able to complete the season and keep his title dream alive.
If you are interested in supporting Tom and helping him over the second half of 2011 or beyond, please e-mail: tom@ingram26.fsnet.co.uk
