Title decider shows best of BTCC as Ingram wins battle of tin-top talent

Second in the standings was Jake Hill, son of a former Brands racing school instructor, who has made his old man Simon so proud over recent seasons as he’s matured into a genuine BTCC force. Speaking to ITV co-commentator and 1992 BTCC champion Tim Harvey pre-season, he’d told me Hill “has a championship in him” following a switch from front-driven Focus to West Surrey Racing’s rear-wheel-drive BMW 330e M Sport, and so it appeared after a strong penultimate weekend at Silverstone that included a third win of the season. In a strong BMW, Hill seemed ready for his moment at his beloved home circuit.

Yet it wasn’t to be. Ingram stormed to a vital pole position on Saturday, then dealt with the inevitable butterflies on Sunday morning to withstand a challenge from Rory Butcher’s Toyota Corolla to win the first race. He refused to get too excited, even after repeating the feat in the early-afternoon second encounter, his sixth victory of the season and the most of any driver. Now leading the points, destiny appeared to be in his hands. Except race three in the BTCC is partially reversed grid. Starting 10th, Ingram was in prime mid-pack territory to be pinged into a barrier. Hill, second in race two, was starting beside him… But no, Jake is better than that. The pair raced cleanly and with no quarter given as Ingram’s team-mate Dan Lloyd led all the way from the reverse-grid pole for the victory that was always going to be overshadowed by the parries and thrusts of the battles behind him.

Sutton, Hill and Ingram ran nose-to-tail in the closing stages, behind Lloyd, BTC Racing Honda driver Josh Cook and Butcher. For Sutton, the day had been one of disappointment, a turbo power problem in race one putting him firmly on the back foot. He didn’t have the speed to challenge for the victory he needed and now on the last lap here was Hill making a lunge at Paddock Hill Bend. It says much for all three that Ingram, without needing to given his championship advantage, felt confident enough to nose his Hyundai down the inside and demote Hill out of contention as Sutton stayed ahead. Ingram finished fifth, on the tail of the blue Ford, with Hill dropping to seventh. Tom was champion by 12 points from Sutton, who in turn was just one point ahead of Hill. Tense, breathless and captivating motor sport.

As is natural in such circumstances, Ingram was in tears on the slow-down lap and struggled to put into words how he was feeling as TV commentator David Addison came on the radio for immediate reaction. The champ was tongue-tied, but then came out with a great line.

“I felt like I needed an adult with me [during the race],” he quipped. “Somebody to come in the passenger seat and say ‘it’s OK, just chill! It will all be fine.’ I was talking to Spencer [his race engineer] – he was constant, all the way through on the radio, every lap, [getting] more information. Knowing what was going on, knowing the gap, knowing who was around me.

“I’m not going to do anything else [but race], why would I do anything else? It’s a racing car, in the best championship in the entire world. Why would I sit there? You’ve got to go for it!”

The series has gained much more than it has lost by embracing hybrid tech

Ingram reflected on meeting three-time champion Matt Neal at the Autosport Show when he was just five years old, how he fell in love with the BTCC and set a target for British motor sport’s pinnacle, via the Ginetta support series and first through Speedworks and its Toyotas. Now with Excelr8 and its Hyundai i30 N, he’d achieved his life’s ambition. “I owe absolutely everything to my amazing team who have put everything behind me because they’ve just worked tirelessly this year,” he said. “It’s just been incredible. This isn’t going to sink in. I’m going to have sore cheeks for at least a week.”

How sweet for Excelr8 and Hyundai, Ingram’s success marking BTCC firsts for both. It was a sizeable gamble for Tom to leave Speedworks, with its status as an official Gazoo Toyota factory entity, at the beginning of last season for a team running a brand of car that was new to the series. How sweet too for Swindon Powertrain, which lost its deal as supplier of the BTCC’s spec TOCA engine to M-Sport, then agreed a deal to provide Excelr8 with bespoke power for 2022. Retribution and valediction all round.

It’s also perhaps no coincidence that Ingram’s breakthrough has come in the opening season of a major BTCC rules reset. Out went the old success ballast system and in came Cosworth’s new spec hybrid system, used as a performance boost on a sliding scale depending on results: the better you score, the fewer laps of boost you get. The new system has been the only significant performance variable this season, especially as Goodyear also dropped its so-called ‘option’ tyre. Unsurprisingly, most teams have had their issues with the new technology, but what it has done is make the BTCC more of a genuine meritocracy. The series’ cream of driving talent, of which there is plenty, generally ran where they should in 2022 – at or near the front. Perhaps some unpredictability was lost, but to these eyes the series has gained much more than it has lost by embracing hybrid tech.

That’s certainly true of Ingram, too. He openly struggled with the old success ballast and was less able to adapt to changing weight across a weekend. Knocking that out in favour of hybrid power boost played directly into his hands, as Harvey had again predicted during our pre-season conversation. “The problem with Tom was always carrying the ballast,” said Tim. “Obviously that’s not an issue now, the cars will run at the same weight all the time and the teams will not be changing set-ups, depending on how much success weight was in the car, and also for option tyres too. Now you’ll literally fine-tune your set-up and that has got to be in Tom’s favour. And when he gets in the zone he’s unbeatable.”

He was certainly so in the first two rounds at Brands on Sunday and held his nerve brilliantly in race three. Tom Ingram, 2022 BTCC champion. He’ll never grow tired of hearing that.