Ingram stays atop BTCC title hunt after strong Silverstone weekend

Tom Ingram maintained his championship advantage over Ash Sutton following three races at a bright and sunny Silverstone.

Dan Lloyd, Ingram and Sam Osborne shared the victories at the penultimate race weekend of the British Touring Car Championship season on the 1.64-mile National circuit at the British Grand Prix venue.

The first race of the day was bookended by drama, with three different leaders on the first three laps, but an end under safety car following a fire for Nic Hamilton.

Darryl DeLeon initially got away well from pole as his West Surrey Racing BMW teammate Jake Hill mounted an early challenge to Toyota Gazoo Racing UK’s Gordon Shedden. The reigning champion couldn't get by, though, and soon got passed by Lloyd for third. 

After escaping that pressure, Shedden worked on DeLeon, getting by at the line. DeLeon tried to resist as the race entered its second lap, but a run wide at Copse consolidated Shedden's lead. 

DeLeon's off-track excursion opened the door for Lloyd to pass at Becketts, both locking up as they entered the first hard braking zone of the lap. Lloyd then set after Shedden and  passed by the end of the Wellington Straight. 

It was a lead the Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance driver wouldn’t relinquish, despite pressure from Hill who passed Shedden for second on lap five. The gap between both grew and shrunk lap-by-lap, and had grown to 1s by the end of lap 16, but Hill responded a lap later by closing to just over 0.3s. 

Hill's challenge was stunted by lap 18 when a fire onboard Hamilton's Un-Limited Motorsport Cupra neutralized the race.

While the race was extended by three laps, from 22 to 25, because of the resultant safety car, the fire and Hamilton's car couldn't be cleared in time, with the race ending behind the Porsche Taycan safety car. The fire meant that Hamilton was unable to take part in the other two races of the day.

Lloyd’s win was the fourth of his career, his first since Croft in 2022, and made him the 11th different race winner of the season. It was also the first for Restart Racing. Hill was second with Shedden rounding out the podium in third.

Senna Proctor took fourth, ahead of Josh Cook and Aiden Moffat, while championship leader Ingram charged from 14th on the grid to finish seventh. He resisted a challenge from title rival Sutton who completed a similar charge through the field, having started from 12th. 

Sutton’s NAPA Racing UK teammate Daniel Rowbottom was ninth after letting Sutton by on the Wellington Straight on lap 13. Adam Morgan completed the top 10.

RACE 1 RESULTS

In the second race of the day, Team Vertu’s Ingram took full advantage of soft tires (which the top three finishers from race one could not use) and 11 laps-worth of TOCA Turbo Boost, thanks to his relatively low finish in race one, to rocket through the field and win comfortably in his Hyundai. 

Starting from seventh on the grid, he was already up to third by Brooklands on the opening lap. He passed race one winner Lloyd for second at the end of the Wellington Straight a lap later, then took the lead from Hill with a similar move two laps later. 

Hill had moved to the fore after making the most of his BMW 330i M Sport's rear-wheel-drive start advantage to quickly dispose of Lloyd, but could not answer Ingram's tire and boost advantage. 

Behind the leaders, Sutton was making similar progress to Ingram. Also with a tire and boost advantage, he leapt from eighth to third by lap nine when the race was neutralized by a safety car to recover Tom Chilton's stricken Hyundai at the exit of Luffield after he'd made contact with Charles Rainford. 

The safety car, which again extended the race from 22 laps to 25, did little to hamper Ingram out in front, and he eventually crossed the line 2.875s clear of Sutton, who got by Hill for second on lap 17, passing him up the inside of Brooklands. 

Hill held on for third, a challenge from Rowbottom coming to an end on lap 23 when the NAPA Racing UK man pulled off with a mechanical issue.

Aron Taylor-Smith took fourth, ahead of Rainford, with Lloyd the highest placed of the race one top three on harder tires in sixth. 

Shedden was seventh, with Moffat, Cook and DeLeon completing the top 10. As well as Rowbottom, Dan Cammish also retired, having failed to take the start with a turbo issue. He briefly took to the track eventually, but returned to the pits soon after.

Two Team Vertu Hyundais also retired, with Morgan also peeling off along with Chilton after sustaining damage after contact with teammate Proctor.

RACE 2 RESULTS

For race three, five-time Formula 1 grand prix winner John Watson drew the number 12 in the partial reverse grid draw, meaning the maximum number of cars possible were reversed. 

The 12th place finisher from race two, Sam Osborne, started from pole ahead of Mikey Doble, with DeLeon third, Cook fourth, Moffat fifth and Shedden and Lloyd competing the grid positions of those reversed. Rainford and Taylor-Smith started next, ahead of the race two top three of Hill, Sutton and Ingram.

Osbrone made a great start from pole position, his early bid for the victory aided by Doble having to fend off Moffat at Copse. 

That battle for second soon became one for third, with Cook wasting little time getting past both to elevate himself to second by the end of lap two. The remainder of the race at the front was a tense battle between Osborne and Cook. 

A gap grew and shrunk every other lap as the pair alternated which laps they deployed their boost, but the duel was settled at the end of lap 20 of 22 when a slide for Cook at Luffield ended his hopes of finding a way past Osborne. For the NAPA Racing UK driver, it was his first win of his BTCC career in his 202nd start in the series.

Sutton made a small chink in Ingram's championship lead by finishing third behind Cook. Hill split the two championship protagonists in fourth, while Moffat's early bid for a podium faded as he finished fifth. 

Morgan, Chilton and Cammish recovered from their race two retirements to finish sixth, seventh and eighth respectively, while Doble was another to fade, finishing 10th, which gave him the Independents race win. 

Rowbottom was one of several drivers to be hit with track limits penalties. Having started 18th on the grid, he ran as high as fifth at one point, but was eventually classified 14th, one spot behind Proctor who was also penalized.

Having started the day with the race one pole, DeLeon missed the start of race three with a driveshaft failure on the way to the grid. He eventually made it on track, but finished three laps down.

RACE 3 RESULTS

The BTCC season concludes on October 4-5 at Brands Hatch with three races on the Kent venue's Grand Prix Circuit. Ingram heads there with one hand on the title thanks to his 38 point lead over Sutton, but the title isn't assured yet, with 69 points still available.