BTCC Media House

Ingram fastest as BTCC launches season at Brands Hatch

Tom Ingram has started how he left off with him setting the fastest time at the BTCC Season Launch at Brands Hatch.

Ingram achieved the fastest time in a day of mixed conditions, which saw the state of the track constantly changing throughout the test.

Ingram set a time of 47.928s to go quickest at the Season Launch, which saw 24 cars from the BTCC grid take part.

Another person who has started how they left off is Ash Sutton with the Napa Racing UK driver sitting only 0.048s off of Ingram, in a sign that their rivalry from last year will continue into this season.

It was a strong day for Napa Racing UK as 3 of their cars made up the top five fastest times, with an impressive debut for the team by Daniel Rowbottom with him setting the third fastest time and only 0.146s from Ingram.

There were three red flags throughout the six hours of testing at Brands Hatch.

The first was caused by the Toyota of Ricky Collard who ended up in the gravel at Clearways.

Then shortly after this, the second yellow came out for Steven Jelley in his BMW who buried his BMW in the barrier at Druids, with the front of the car being a bit crumbled as a result.

Finally, one of the Astra’s brought the third and final red flag with under half an hour to go in the morning session.

A team that experienced a variety of issues throughout the day was Team Hard Racing.

Firstly, they were without one of their drivers with Bobby Thompson, unable to attend the test due to an illness.

Then to add to the team’s nightmares they missed the whole morning of testing due to the fact they were waiting for Cosworth to commission the team’s new hybrid installs.

This resulted in the first of their cars coming out around an hour and a half into the afternoon session when the track conditions were at their worst due to the heavy downpour of rain.

The team was able to get three of their cars out on track in the end with Patterson, Lloyd, and Butel driving extremely well in the very poor conditions.

Furthermore, the cars of Jade Edwards and Nicholas Hamilton did not make an appearance, leaving Edwards especially little testing time before the first race at Donnington Park on April 23rd.

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