TOM INGRAM: THE BTCC CROWN MEANS THE WORLD TO ME
Alan Hyde spoke to the newly crowned champion on his Tin Top Tuesday show just two days after the title winner had been decorated
Even with a handful of laps to go, Tom Ingram was getting carried away, which is a dangerous thing to do in the British Touring Car Championship. But, with the ultimate silverware almost in his grasp, who could blame him?
He was on the cusp of realising a nine-year dream to scale the UK’s most prestigious title and it was all there for him to win: or lose. He collected himself, got his head down for the final tours and prevailed in a three-way shootout. It was literally the stuff of his dreams.
Alan Hyde: Ash Sutton putting the number one sicker on your car [in parc ferme after the race]– how nice was that?
Tom Ingram: “What a lovely touch that was. I dropped him a text afterwards to say thanks. It is amazing the amount of people who have shared that clip on social media saying what an immensely sportsman-like thing to do.”
AH: And he presented you with the trophy too…
TI: “There were so many nice things about that whole weekend.”
AH: It was quite emotional being near your garage as the realisation dawned and there was only a lap and a half to go…
TI “One of the things I am gutted about is that I never saw any of that, because I was in tears as I came around Clearways. Spencer Aldridge, my engineer, came on the radio and said the magic words that made me cry. I cried from that moment until I returned to the pitlane. I had no idea how I made it around the slow-down lap, because I could hardly see anything!
“I have watched the footage back and I had my head in my hands coming out of Clearways [even before he had taken the flag]. I wasn’t even looking where I was going – I could’ve crashed! Just imagine if I had done that…now that would have been a terrible way to lose…”
AH: You got the quote of the year on the slowing-down lap when you said that you wished you’d had an adult in the car with you…
TI: “But I absolutely did! The second race was probably the most stressful of my life, but the last race was just weird. There was so much stuff going on and there was so much to think about. We had done all the planning before the weekend.
I didn’t want to look at the points and I didn’t do that over the course of the meeting because I didn’t want it to change the way I was driving or going into any of the races. The only way I knew was when
Louise Goodman at ITV would tell me I was however many points clear in the post-race interview afterwards. Cheers, I didn’t want to know!
“I just wanted to focus on us and just drive around in circles and do the best job we could and not really worry about anything else. I had spent most of the day doing that, and as we went into the third race, I thought that I probably should have a little look at the standings and come up with some plans and ideas! I wanted to know that if it did kick off, at least I could try to manage it as best I can from my side – but once you are in it, there really is no way to try and manage it. Your head is all over the place…”
AH: That is the pressure cooker of building up to the third race. That hour between race two and race three just seems to get shorter and shorter…
TI: “In the hour building up to that last race, I just felt awful. I usually have something to eat between races two and three, but I just couldn’t do it. I felt sick. I had said my approach would be the same as normal and I was trying to keep everything just like I would normally do it. I just couldn’t. I was trying to go through work and ideas, and all I could think about was the fact I needed to throw up. It was just ridiculous. Even though it was an hour, it felt like 15 minutes and time almost had no meaning. It was so strange. It was all such a weird moment of my life.”
AH: At that point, you are headed towards the inevitable, but you know that the inevitable is far from decided until the end of the race…
TI: “That race three, I had to be so on it with not thinking ahead or getting carried away. We had done all our work, and I knew the situation. While I was sat behind Jake Hill with about four laps to go, my head was whispering to me ‘you are going to win it, this is yours…don’t mess it up now’. My head was going through this really silly phase. You start thinking about what a cool moment it can be.
“I had to tell myself to stop it and get those thoughts out of my head. I still had four laps to do. I had to tell myself to behave. The thing that kept coming into my head is what happened to Dan Cammish in 2019 [when his brakes failed with a lap and a half remaining, which lost him the title]. Every time I came to that corner [Hawthorn] I was thinking about it. I was replaying it in my mind.
“Having now been in that situation when you only have a few laps left and you are in a good place and you are on course to win it, your head gets carried away. It makes you wonder just how
Dan was able to come back from that heartbreak. It beyond amazes me.
“Those four laps I had, I was getting carried away. To have it snatched from you must have been horrendous for him. This means the absolute earth to me and I never want to forget that feeling of finally winning it.” ■