Tom Ingram survived two clashes with Ash Sutton to take victory in the first race of the British Touring Car Championship round at Thruxton.
Four-time champion and current series leader Sutton started from pole position in his Alliance Racing-run Ford Focus ST, with the Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback of 2022 title winner Ingram – hitherto winless this season – alongside.
Ingram was on the hunt from the off, and on the opening lap at the chicane he swept around the outside of Sutton, but the two were on a collision course at the second apex.
While Ingram emerged in front, the race had gone under caution and, with the Excelr8 team informing him that the safety car boards were already out at the time of the pass, he conceded the position back to Sutton early in what was a lengthy six-lap period to retrieve the cars of Sam Osborne and Max Hall, who had gone off at Goodwood.
Once the field was finally given the green flag, Ingram was on the attack again, and used one of his two available laps of TOCA Turbo Boost to attack Sutton once again.
Again, Ingram was on the outside heading into the chicane, and the late-braking Sutton’s Ford skipped sideways before it pitched into the side of Ingram.
Both cars were off the road and bypassed the chicane entirely, emerging in front of Dan Cammish and Mikey Doble.
Sutton, as the championship leader, had just one lap of TTB available for this race, and used it with four to go to get a run on Ingram as they approached the chicane.
But then the Ford mysteriously dropped back as they ran up Woodham Hill, and a power loss meant Sutton handed second place to Alliance Ford team-mate Cammish on the approach to Noble on the following tour.
The Berkshire-domiciled Yorkshireman had been gaining on the leading pair anyway, with five laps of TTB, but both he and Ingram were down to one for the final tour and the Hyundai man held on to claim his first victory of 2025 by 1.214 seconds.
“Everyone’s been saying, ‘You haven’t won a race this year,’ and to be honest I haven’t been that fussed,” said Ingram.
“That was a really good, really tight race. A spicy race. The first one [moment with Sutton] was close, because I thought I was ahead at the safety car board, and when Ash came sailing back past under the safety car I thought they could look at it afterwards.
“The second one, I got hit fairly early on [in the corner entry phase] and I’ve got no option. I’ve got to try and not have a crash, but I yielded the time back [after the chicane] that I’d gained, which is the rules.”
Doble put in another strong showing in his Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra, albeit conceding third place to Cammish just after the restart when he braked too deep into the Complex.
With six laps remaining Doble was coming under pressure from Josh Cook, up from 14th on the grid in his One Motorsport Honda Civic Type R, and the Alliance Ford of Dan Rowbottom.
Next time around, Doble pulled off the road and into retirement, putting Cook into fourth place. The red-headed West Countryman then went after the hobbled Ford of Sutton, and went through on the penultimate lap at Church Corner – a remarkable comeback from his heavy qualifying shunt that required a completely new front end on the car and a trip to hospital for Cook to see to an injured right foot, and with fastest lap to boot.
Rowbottom finished fifth ahead of the West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport of reigning champion Jake Hill and Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport of impressive rookie James Dorlin.
Rounding out the top 10 on the road were the Excelr8 Hyundais of Adam Morgan, Senna Proctor (whose contact at Noble with Gordon Shedden sent the Toyota off the road) and Tom Chilton, although a time penalty for persistent track-limits offences relegated Chilton to 15th and promoted Daryl DeLeon (WSR BMW).
Chilton had survived a spin at Allard on the opening lap, with Charles Rainford also going off in his WSR BMW to the outside before spearing back across the track. Like Chilton, Rainford continued but did not score points.
Thruxton Race 1 results
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