Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Autosport
Autosport
Sport
Marcus Simmons

BTCC Brands Hatch: Ingram holds off Hill to extend points lead

Ingram and his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N soaked up massive pressure from the West Surrey Racing-run BMW 330e M Sport of Jake Hill, who has now become his closest title rival and is 11 points adrift.

Pre-weekend championship leader Ash Sutton placed fifth in his Motorbase Performance Ford Focus and is 14 points adrift, while a charging drive to third from WSR BMW star Colin Turkington was not enough to keep him in title contention.

The race initially followed a similar pattern to the first – minus the safety cars and long clear-up operations – with Ingram holding the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla of Rory Butcher at bay.

But once Hill had his tyres warmed up on the rear-wheel-drive BMW, he began to haul in Butcher.

By one-third distance Hill was with the Toyota, and he managed to slip through on the inside of Druids on the eighth lap of 15.

He set off after Ingram and, with five laps remaining, the Hyundai was having to defend.

But Ingram made no mistakes, and saved one more lap of hybrid deployment than Hill who, with three laps remaining, had run out of rear-tyre life.

This was evidenced by a massive slide for Hill at Sheene Curve on the penultimate lap, and he eventually finished 0.673 seconds adrift of Ingram.

“I’m out of puff from that one,” said Ingram. “That really was hard work.

“I didn’t have the pace against Jake. The only way we did have the pace was on hybrid deployment, so I had to use it and deploy it where I could build a gap.”

Hill finished second and trails Ingram by 11 points ahead of the final race (Photo by: Jakob Ebrey)

Hill’s team-mate Turkington was right in the rear-view mirror of the sister BMW by the finish.

The four-time champion finally made it past Sutton for fourth into Surtees on the eighth lap after a long period of probing, and then closed in on Butcher, who he passed into Druids five tour later.

Sutton fell back into a massive battle with the Ciceley Motorsport BMWs of Adam Morgan and George Gamble – the latter getting ahead of Morgan briefly, before the veteran reasserted himself in sixth place behind Sutton.

Furthermore, a five-second penalty for a false start for Gamble dropped him to 11th in the results.
Up to seventh came the BTC Racing Honda Civic Type R of Josh Cook ahead of Dan Cammish (Motorbase Ford), Bobby Thompson (Team Hard Cupra Leon) and Dan Lloyd (Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai).

With wins record holder Jason Plato retiring from the BTCC after this weekend, he performed the reversed-grid draw, and it’s Lloyd who will start on pole.

BTCC Brands Hatch race two result - 15 laps

Cla Driver Time Gap
1 United Kingdom Tom Ingram 23'02.565  
2 United Kingdom Jake Hill 23'03.238 0.673
3 United Kingdom Colin Turkington 23'03.546 0.981
4 United Kingdom Rory Butcher 23'07.258 4.693
5 United Kingdom Ashley Sutton 23'09.323 6.758
6 United Kingdom Adam Morgan 23'09.473 6.908
7 United Kingdom Josh Cook 23'12.419 9.854
8 United Kingdom Dan Cammish 23'12.742 10.177
9 Bobby Thompson 23'13.866 11.301
10 United Kingdom Daniel Lloyd 23'14.351 11.786
11 George Gamble 23'14.980 12.415
12 United Kingdom Aiden Moffat 23'15.377 12.812
13 United Kingdom Daniel Rowbottom 23'16.118 13.553
14 United Kingdom Tom Chilton 23'16.442 13.877
15 United Kingdom Stephen Jelley 23'16.769 14.204
16 United Kingdom Ricky Collard 23'17.553 14.988
17 United Kingdom Ash Hand 23'20.231 17.666
18 United Kingdom Jason Plato 23'20.611 18.046
19 United Kingdom Gordon Shedden 23'22.108 19.543
20 Dexter Patterson 23'22.337 19.772
21 Michael Crees 23'29.294 26.729
22 United Kingdom Sam Osborne 23'29.691 27.126
23 United Kingdom Ollie Jackson 23'30.351 27.786
24 Jersey Jack Butel 23'31.481 28.916
25 Jade Edwards 23'35.749 33.184
26 Rick Parfitt Jr. 23'36.867 34.302
  Ireland Aron Taylor-Smith 17'16.217 4 Laps
  Nicolas Hamilton 1'46.535 14 Laps
  United Kingdom Carl Boardley    
Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.