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High Wycombe star Tom Ingram admitted to being overwhelmed at having stormed to the maiden podium finish of his fledgling car racing career in only his fourth outing in the televised, British Touring Car Championship-supporting Ginetta Junior Championship at Thruxton, as the former BRDC Stars of Tomorrow karting champion belied his lack of experience to take the fight to the front-runners around the fastest and most fearsome track in the country.

Having gone into the Brands Hatch curtain-raiser three weeks earlier practically blind in terms of knowledge and seat time, a test day at Thruxton ahead of the Hampshire meeting was a great confidence-booster, as Tom lapped firmly up at the sharp end of proceedings throughout and in greasy conditions that made life anything but easy for all 18 competitors present, winding up an encouraging sixth in the morning and eighth outright at the end of the day – and knowing there was still more pace to be found. Indeed, at a certain point he was running even higher up the order still…

“It was the first time we had ever been out on scrubbed tyres,” the 15-year-old related, “and to be in the top six was pretty jaw-dropping really! I came round and saw P2 and the number four on my pit board, which I misinterpreted as meaning I had just two laps left and was four seconds off the pace. I thought ‘there’s no way I’m that far off’, so I ended up pushing harder and harder and harder until I nearly binned it! I thought I should probably calm down a bit then, and when I came in I was told I had in fact been second-quickest!

“I was pretty amazed to be honest. That was definitely a confidence boost, because if you are quick in testing you know the pace is there, so come the race weekend we knew we were going to be there or thereabouts, and it was all really a question of just keeping a cool head. Even if you don’t qualify that well, you know you can make the places up if you have good race pace. It’s all about the tow at Thruxton too – if you can get into the tow, the amount of time you can find is massive, because the circuit is practically flat-out everywhere!”

Entering the weekend with high hopes of building on the eighth-place finish he had achieved on his debut at Brands Hatch three weeks earlier, Tom would do so in considerable style. Staying out on wet tyres in free practice as the track surface dried left him an unrepresentative 13th on the timesheets, but with new rubber bolted on for qualifying he went on to secure a superb third on the grid amongst the 22-strong field for race one – barely a tenth of a second shy of the front row – and followed it up with seventh for race two. Indeed, he even held pole position for much of the session, despite admitting to being plagued by understeer.

“I was turning into the first complex and just waiting and waiting and waiting,” the Monodraught and Joe Bloggs-backed ace explained. “I think I was probably going into the corner too hard, when I should have been braking and turning in earlier and more calmly. I was just braking really hard, changing down the gears as fast as I could and chucking it into the corner, when I should really have been Mr Smooth.”

Nonetheless, P3 was a superb effort, and despite his lack of practice in terms of standing starts, the Wye Valley School pupil made a strong getaway when the lights went out in the opening encounter. He then went on to duel energetically with fellow karting graduate and Tockwith Motorsports team-mate Carl Stirling, before ultimately getting the better of the Irishman – who would go off in a haze of tyre smoke in his attempts to keep up – to take the chequered flag in a wholly unexpected fourth place, despite suffering a slight scare along the way…

“Two or three hours before the race we were all having a laugh and a joke, but with an hour to go I decided to return to the awning, just concentrate and get in the zone and focus on what I was going to do,” Tom recounted, revealing a remarkably wise head for one so young. “There wasn’t too much pressure on me, because nobody had really expected me to be up there. I just had to try and keep calm, make sure I got a decent start, get into the tow and not make any mistakes. I got a good start and was then able to put consistent laps together, get into the tow when I needed to and make moves straightaway.

“At one point, Aaron Williamson ahead got a tank-slapper on, lost the back end and was practically out in the field. In that kind of situation, though, the momentum carries you back onto the track, and as Carl and I went left to avoid him, his car snapped left too. That forced us both onto the grass, and right as I was going past Williamson – flat-out and sideways on full opposite-lock on the grass – his car suddenly swung towards me again, before I came bouncing back onto the track to be chucked one way and then immediately the other!

“There was a huge tyre wall coming up ahead of me, but I thought ‘I’ve done all this hard work, I’m not giving it all up for this’ and I managed to hold onto the car using what I had learned on the skid pan up at Tockwith. It did get a tiny bit hairy for a few moments…”

If it was a remarkable save, it was an even more remarkable result, just six seconds shy of victory at the chequered flag and with a fastest lap a mere six tenths off the best of the race – and it left Tom vowing to go better still in race two. With the throttle body on his car having been cleaned out overnight – immediately rendering the #80 machine noticeably more responsive and crisper to drive – the reigning Wycombe and Marlow Sports Personality of the Year would be every bit as good as his word, engaging in a fraught tussle with David Moore that tested both his nerve and his mettle to the absolute limit.

“I wanted to do even better on Sunday,” he confessed, “and when I was lying in fourth chasing David I thought ‘I can’t really let myself down now’. I had latched onto the back of David earlier in the race and we worked together as he pulled me along and up to the fight over fourth place, which brought us both right into contention. I knew I had the pace and that I was easily quick enough, and I got by him on the inside heading down into Church.
“With two laps to go he overcooked it as he tried to get back past again and missed the apex of the corner, which threw him over to the outside of the track. I got a mega run on him and got him going across the line to begin the final lap. I was once told that the last thing you want at Thruxton is to be just ahead of someone going into the last lap because of how much potential there is for slipstreaming round there, and I think that lap was pretty much the longest I can ever remember! David was putting pressure on me like you wouldn’t believe – I couldn’t see anything in my mirrors except for his car just swerving all over the place trying to find a way by!
“He had a lot of pace and I kept expecting him to stick his nose up the inside – he couldn’t have been more than about a foot away from the back of my car for the whole lap, which meant I had to concentrate on not putting a wheel out of place whilst trying to both defend and attack at the same time! He was just pushing and pushing and pushing, and if I had missed a single apex or missed a gear by a fraction or had a single slide he would have got me, but I was just able to brake that little bit later so he couldn’t attack me and managed to keep him there for the whole lap.

“We came across a backmarker in the last corner of the lap and I was able to force David to take the outside line around him. I went over the line screaming inside the car – my throat is still hurting now! I reckon they must have heard me on the pit wall, because I was just going mad! The whole team was really pleased for me, and Simon who runs it told me I had driven a fantastic race.”

Indeed, many remarked afterwards upon Tom’s impressive pace, flawless racecraft, intelligence in the heat of battle and supreme consistency from lights out to chequered flag – with no less than Ginetta Cars managing director Richard Dean noting his phenomenal performance as the hallmark of a driver with an extremely promising future ahead of him. As weekends go, it couldn’t be faulted in any way.

“I was over the moon with the result,” the Booker-based speed demon enthused, “and kind of shocked too to be honest. We couldn’t really have asked for any more. At the beginning of the weekend none of us had thought we’d be coming away with a fourth and a third. To come away with those results only second time out made me absolutely chuffed. I’ve always said that if I could get a podium by the end of the season I would be happy, and we got one in just our fourth race…”

Tom now sits an excellent fourth in the championship chase with two of the ten rounds completed, and top rookie heading next to Donington Park on 16-17 May. He might be keeping his feet firmly on the ground in limiting his objectives to just the top ten again, but following his Thruxton success he is certainly heading to the Derbyshire circuit and new home of the British Grand Prix for the first time with an added spring in his step.

Photo by Lee Foxon