Silverstone BTCC: Ingram reignites title hopes with Race 2 win

The reigning Independents Trophy holder started the race in 15th place after struggling in race one but, free from any success ballast and with the preferable softer tyres on the car, zoomed through the order to break into the top three after only six laps.

Those ahead had more weight and Ingram capitalised with a strong exit from Becketts on lap seven to power ahead of the Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes of Adam Morgan, which was in the middle of passing the 66kg-heavy Motorbase Ford of Tom Chilton.

Ingram was then able to set off after leader Sam Tordoff, who had started his Motorbase Ford from pole with 75kg of success ballast. Ingram again used superb traction out of Becketts to pull alongside his rival on the run towards Brooklands and went around the outside of his rival.

“That was a really special win, and it was what we needed,” said Ingram. “We took the pain of the weight and the harder tyres in race one, and then we had to go on the attack because we had lost points to our rivals.

“With the calibre of the field, you can take nothing for granted and I was pushing all the way. The car was a rocket ship.”

The move means that Ingram has closed the gap to points leader Colin Turkington in his WSR BMW, which had hard tyres for the race and he came home in eighth spot in the end. Ingram is just 36 points adrift.

Morgan was delighted with second place, but he knew that he could do nothing about Ingram. What Morgan could do though was to jump Tordoff into Copse midway through. 

Behind Tordoff, Ricky Collard maintained his good form with fourth place, fending off a queue of cars including Matt Simpson (Simpson Motorsport Honda), Jack Goff’s Eurotech Honda and Aiden Moffat (Laser Tools Racing Mercedes-Benz).

Moffat was drawn on pole for the reversed grid final encounter later this afternoon.