Tom Ingram rolled with the punches as the British Touring Car Championship made its annual trip north of the border to Knockhill last weekend (8-9 August), and while he once again found himself ‘on the wrong side of Lady Luck’, he remains confident of ‘reaping the rewards’ of all the hard work that has gone in before the season is out.

Ingram completed 32 laps around the tight-and-twisty, undulating 1.27-mile Fife circuit during free practice, enjoying a brief spell at the top of the timesheets prior to ending up seventh-quickest amongst the 23 high-calibre protagonists, less than a quarter-of-a-second shy of the benchmark and comfortably the best-placed of the leading championship contenders in the UK’s premier motor racing series.

Arriving in Scotland sitting second in the standings, however, meant the Team VERTU star had access to only three seconds per lap of TOCA Turbo Boost (TTB) in qualifying – around a circuit where the additional power makes a sizeable difference.

In evidence of just how hard he was having to push to try to overcome that disadvantage, Ingram lost four lap times – including one that would have put him inside the top five on the grid for Saturday’s ‘Race to Pole’ – due to track limits transgressions, leaving him to take the start from down in 11^th place, albeit five spots ahead of chief rival, Ash Sutton.

With spots of rain in the air, the talented Bucks-born ace gained a position on the opening tour and subsequently pulled off a textbook pass on James Dorlin for ninth into Clark’s. He thereafter zeroed in on the duelling Ricky Collard and Mikey Doble, unleashing strong late pace as he took the chequered flag a scant 0.179 seconds shy of seventh.

Sunday morning dawned wet, and in front of the live ITV4 television cameras and a huge on-site crowd, Ingram belied his comparative lack of boost and an engine issue to go characteristically on the attack in the day’s curtain-raising contest, executing a number of eye-catching overtakes including a particularly memorable move to relieve Daryl De Leon of seventh as he outfoxed both the BMW driver and Dan Cammish at the hairpin.

Lapping faster than the leader, the reigning BTCC champion boldly held his nerve as Charles Rainford squeezed him towards the grass midway through to climb to sixth, and he had risen to fifth when the safety car was summoned on lap 17 to clear up an incident further down the order. Following the re-start, he then hassled fellow multiple title-winner Sutton relentlessly, drawing alongside across the finish line as he missed out on gaining another position by a mere 0.145 seconds.

On the soft Goodyear tyres – while the top three on the grid were obliged by the regulations to run the less competitive medium compound – race two promised much but would unfortunately prove short-lived, as Ingram got caught up in a first lap concertina effect into the chicane that sent his Hyundai i30N into the back of Gordon Shedden, with an innocuous-looking impact resulting in significant radiator damage that forced him into retirement.

The EXCELR8 Motorsport crew performed minor miracles to replace the engine before race three, when from the back of the pack and on the medium rubber, Ingram scythed his way assertively up into the points by lap five, posting ‘purple’ sectors like they were going out of business as he latched onto the tail of the scrap for sixth.

While far from what the 32-year-old Coventry-based racer had been hoping for at the beginning of the weekend, tenth at the flag nevertheless marked an impressive 12-place gain around a circuit where overtaking is something of a fine art. The 2026 BTCC campaign will continue at Donington Park in just under a fortnight’s time (22-23 August).

Images: Jakob Ebrey Photography