INGRAM’S INDY JOY
IN THE OPENING ROUND OF THE 2016 CHAMPIONSHIP, TOM Ingram took the first win of the year and reigning champion Gordon Shedden followed him over the line. It was exactly the same script this year, but then the story took a different turn.
Ingram’s year fell apart after that opening win last year, but this time around he held his nerve. He followed it with another podium and then a second win during meeting two aboard his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Avensis at Donington Park.
“In 2016, we were just gunning for race wins – perhaps we didn’t realise how good we were,” explains Ingram, who won the 2017 Independents’ Trophy at a canter. “This year, I didn’t change the way I drove, but the goals were different. We knew we had race-winning pace, now we had to prove we could put together a championship.”
For a while, it looked like it could be a fairytale shot at the overall crown, but then came Oulton Park and Croft, which yielded just nine points. Two painful rounds of contact at Oulton were followed by two more in North Yorkshire.
The stuffing was knocked out of Ingram’s overall challenge, although he was still clinging on to the Independents’ lead. “Weekends like we had in the middle of the season can get you down,” he says. “One disaster can breed another, so we had to reset and get on with it. We put it behind us.”
Ingram clinched the Independents’ crown at Brands Hatch in the penultimate race, and that left him free to fight for third in the overall table in the finale, which he managed.
Behind Jack Goff in the Indy rankings was Mat Jackson in his Motorbase Ford after what has to be a disappointing year. The team felt the car was regulated out of the game to begin with in terms of boost, but it got a leg-up from
Oulton onwards. Despite that, there was only one victory for Jackson – at Croft – in an underperforming season.
Another that would have expected more was the Ciceley Racing crew of Adam Morgan. His Mercedes A-class was on the pace to begin with, but a disastrous Oulton, where a shunt was followed by a fire, preceded mechanical problems at Croft. From there, the team lost its way and he slipped down the order to fourth in the Indy standings.
The 13th and final race winner of the season was Rob Austin, who had taken his Handy Motorsport Toyota Avensis to within two points of the Independents’ Trophy lead at the halfway stage. But he was another driver who experienced a mid-season crisis, with contact (not all his own doing) and a mechanical failure meaning he earned just one top-15 finish in nine races. He has a new Alfa Romeo coming for 2018.
“One disaster can breed another, so we had to reset and get on with it”