INGRAM VS SHEDDEN: TWO SIDES OF THE STORY

If Tom Ingram and Gordon Shedden were 1970s sitcom characters, you could imagine one as Richard Briers’s sunny, cheerful Tom Good from The Good Life, the other as Fulton Mackay’s caring but bristling-over-wrongdoing Scottish prison officer Mr Mackay from Porridge (although admittedly John Cleland had that part nailed down).

But Ingram can also hit out, as he did after his penalty for the collision in Donington race two that cost him victory to Shedden. Clearly there’s little love lost between the duo, and this was a good old-fashioned touring car disagreement of the sort crowds used to lap up from, say, Cleland and Alain Menu.

The question was: did Shedden jump or was he pushed in their incident at Coppice? Ingram (below) said ‘jump’, Shedden said ‘pushed’. And the verdict came in Shedden’s favour.

“If it was a push-to-pass, I’d have been a little bit more forceful with it because he’s done it to me previously,” protested Ingram. “I came from 11th to win the race without a scratch on the car other than when Gordon brake-tests me. Was there contact? Yes. Did it give me an advantage? Absolutely not. Did I drive past because I had zero ballast and new tyres? Yes. Unfortunately, he knows exactly how to play the system.”

But Shedden countered: “It was just a push-to-pass. He got into the back of me and opened up the inside, which we know you can’t do. To be honest I feel sorry for him because he had the pace and could have passed me anywhere, but we all know the rules: you can’t hit someone up the arse.

“I should feel absolutely delighted that I’ve won my 50th BTCC race, but

I’m feeling bad and I shouldn’t because I had nothing to do with it.”