BTCC: Ingram romps to crucial Brands Hatch pole position
EXCELR8 Motorsport's Tom Ingram has secured what may prove to be the most important pole position of his British Touring Car Championship career so far after dominating qualifying at the Brands Hatch finale.
The Hyundai i30N driver arrives into the final weekend of the 2022 season sitting third in the drivers' standings, just seven-points adrift of championship leader Ash Sutton, and will start directly ahead of the defending three-time champion for Sunday's opening race.
Having looked in sublime form all day so far, Ingram set a sensational lap before the halfway mark of the session to blow the existing pole position lap record out of the water by 0.6s.
From the point of Ingram setting a 1'29.6 effort, the Hyundai driver looked unbeatable and the championship contender went even faster further into the session after producing a 1'29.529s lap to beat his nearest challenger Toyota's Rory Butcher by over 0.4s.
Despite his scorching pace, Ingram did face a nervy end to the session when a red-flag, triggered by his Hyundai team mate Tom Chilton stopping on the circuit with three-minutes to, reset the clock for a five-minute qualifying shootout. But no one could come close to Ingram's time.
Protecting a five-point lead over Jake Hill, Sutton shares the second row of the grid with his NAPA Racing team mate Dan Cammish. The Ford duo ran in tandem for the near entirety of the session to qualify in third and fourth.
Hill ended qualifying as the fastest BMW runner in fifth position and still remains very much in hunt with the ROKiT MB Motorsport driver starting directly behind his title rivals.
An impressive effort from Team HARD's Bobby Thompson sees the Cupra Leon runner share the third row with Hill in sixth position, while Laser Tools Racing's Dexter Patterson caused a stir after the BTCC rookie launched his Infiniti up the order to seventh.
Adam Morgan will start Sunday's opening race from eighth, while Josh Cook and Colin Turkington completed the remainder of the top-ten order.
At one point, Turkington rose as high as fourth in the timesheets, but the four-time champion fell further down the order during the latter stages of the session.
