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“I was feeling excited, because I had been out of the car for a while,” Tom revealed. “Silverstone is a great circuit with a lot of history behind it, and I was just looking forward to getting back into the car again and hopefully getting a decent result there. I was a bit nervous going into the first practice session, but I coped with it fine.”
Eleventh-quickest in both Friday sessions as he dialled himself back into the groove, the 16-year-old’s efforts were hampered somewhat by handling and set-up issues caused by a twitchy rear end, but after they were resolved Tom fairly flew, lapping fifth-fastest amongst the 17 competitors in the final practice session on Saturday morning, barely seven tenths adrift of the outright pace.
He would go on to snatch sixth and fourth positions on the grid respectively for the two races in qualifying, meaning that out of 12 attempts, he has now lined up inside the top half dozen on eight occasions – a brilliant record for one of the most inexperienced drivers in the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) support series, and one that proves he is also indubitably one of its fastest learners.
“It was all just about getting back into the car and getting used to it again,” Tom acknowledged, “but that didn’t take too long. I was pleased with my qualifying performance, but afterwards my dad told me that if I’d found just a few more hundredths I’d have been one place higher both times, and the annoying thing was I got demoted to sixth on the last lap. I was happy with the car in general; there were a few things that could have been better, but you just have to drive through that.”
A battling eighth in a ‘boring’ if closely-contested race one – ‘there was just a lot of yo-yoing of positions, but it was a decent result, and we got solid points and no damage’ – made way for a very different second encounter. Out on dry-weather tyres in slippery conditions that even the BTCC pros had struggled in, race two was anything but dull, as the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year recounted.
“I knew I didn’t really have the pace to be pushing the leader,” he mused of his expectations, “so again I was just hoping for a decent result with no damage. It was my best start of the year so far – I got to the first corner and I was leading it from fourth! I just dived through the middle and then got pushed right up against the pit wall and thought ‘I ain’t backing out of this!’
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“I kept my foot in, but then because it was wet and I was the first one to test the conditions – no one knew what it was going to be like, so the leader is always the guinea pig – I got a massive slide on into the first corner and the car stepped right the way out. I lost a load of momentum and a few people were able to jump past me. I was very mindful of not being able to afford any damage, and after that it was just about keeping it on the island, putting decent laps together and keeping out of trouble.”
That he undoubtedly did, and along the way Tom enjoyed entertaining scraps with a number of rivals – most notably namesake Tom Howard – as the Ginetta Junior field scrabbled around for grip and traction with light rain rendering the track surface treacherous. For a long time part of the second-placed tussle, and at one stage the fastest man on the circuit, the former British Karting Champion eventually took the chequered flag less than two seconds shy of the podium in sixth – and stated that he had not enjoyed himself so much in a long time.
“They said ‘as long as you get loads of heat into the tyres on the warming-up lap and keep that heat in them it shouldn’t be too bad’,” the Tockwith Motorsports ace recalled of the conditions, “and it wasn’t to be honest. I just had to keep the power down and drive through it really; it was the same for everybody else, and everyone was sliding about. I had a few scary moments, but at the end of the day we finished.
“It was a really good battle with Tom – we were swapping places nearly every corner! I was a bit annoyed, admittedly, because I thought if we hadn’t been battling we could maybe have caught up to the pack in front, but regardless of that we still had a good, clean race between us. We didn’t touch once, and that’s how racing should be.
“The whole thing could have gone any way to be fair – all you needed was for one driver to have a slip-up at the front and chuck a few people off. Saying that, someone did spin right in front of me on one of the laps which mucked my momentum up. The most important thing was that we got another good, solid result and stayed out of trouble. At the end of the day I’m really pleased. I’ve come away with two decent results, good points and no damage to have to pay for, which is one thing off our minds now.”
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Indeed, with budgetary limitations ever at the forefront of his family’s concerns, the importance of keeping his car in one piece at all costs can scarcely be underestimated, and looking ahead now to the penultimate meeting on the 2009 calendar at Rockingham on September 19/20th, more of the same is the clear goal. Whilst fifth spot in the final drivers’ standings is still mathematically within reach, at just eight points adrift of ninth, Tom recognises that a top ten finish is now a more realistic target.
“We’ve got three weeks to scrabble together enough funding to be able to go to Rockingham,” concluded the Joe Bloggs, Conway House Dental Practice and Terry Payne-backed speed demon. “Fingers crossed, we might be able to get there, but we still need some more money to be sure. I’ve done ten laps round there in a T-Car, and it’s a fantastic track to drive. You’ve got the tight, twisty bit which is quite narrow, and then you go onto the ‘oval’ section and there are just massive banks, which were designed for IndyCar-style cars.
“At the beginning of the year I was hoping for a top five or six championship placing, but now after we’ve missed two rounds I think it’s more sensible to aim for a top ten.”
For a driver looking increasingly like the complete package – his racecraft has always been peerless, his qualifying in Ginettas is excellent and now he has mastered the starts too – it seems the pieces of the jigsaw are all beginning to fit into place. Watch this name – Tom Ingram has a very bright future ahead of him indeed.
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