BTCC Donington: Ingram dominates rain-delayed season opener

After a two-hour delay due to the persistent heavy rain, the unfortunate crowd was treated to 14 laps under the safety car after the fast-starting Sam Osborne crashed heavily at the top of the Craner Curves on the opening lap when he was tapped by the Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra of Aron Taylor-Smith, and the Allied Racing Ford Focus barely slowed down across the wet grass on its trip into the barriers.

Although Osborne emerged unscathed, the same could not be said of one of the marshals rebuilding the tyre wall, who fell over and needed attention from medics, which extended the caution while he was attended to and left time for just six laps of racing.

That was probably just as well – Ingram probably enjoyed driving his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N around at the front of the field, but he was vastly superior to the rest of the field.

With one lap remaining Ingram was 2.652 seconds in front, before that was trimmed to 2.485s as he took the chequered flag.

Ingram’s only threat came at the initial start, when the West Surrey Racing BMW 330e M Sport of Colin Turkington made a rapid getaway from third on the grid to nose alongside – and briefly ahead of – the Hyundai.

But Turkington was on the outside line for Redgate, allowing team-mate Jake Hill a free run into second place on the inside.

Turkington then fell victim to the NAPA-liveried Allied Ford of Ash Sutton, who gave the BMW a slight nudge at the Old Hairpin and then accelerated around the outside at Schwantz Curve and into third spot.

Hill kept Sutton at bay for two laps following the restart, before an error when he lost the rear of the BMW allowed the Ford to get up the inside at Coppice and then complete the move into the chicane to take the runner-up position.

“In conditions like that, you’re actually in a weird kind of way quite happy it’s a reduced-distance race,” said Ingram, “because the circuit was changing every lap.

“It was a fairly unique set of circumstances in the sense that we all had hybrid every single racing lap, and as a starting point, it was spot-on. Pole, win the first race, fastest lap, happy days.”

Behind Turkington, Ronan Pearson continued his excellent weekend to run fifth all the way in his Excelr8 Hyundai, but it wasn’t such a pleasant story for his partner on the third row: Andrew Watson.

The Speedworks Motorsport Toyota-driving Northern Irishman dropped out of the top 10 on the final lap at the hands of the sister Corolla of Aiden Moffat, and instead, it was Moffat’s fellow LKQ Toyota runner Josh Cook who sliced his way up to sixth.

Next up were Taylor-Smith, Adam Morgan (WSR BMW), Dan Cammish (Allied Ford) and Moffat.

Rob Huff was in the entertaining midfield battle with Cammish and Moffat, only for the Allied Ford of Dan Rowbottom to run into Mikey Doble at the Old Hairpin, with the PMR Vauxhall unable to avoid harpooning Huff’s Speedworks Toyota for a trip through the gravel.

BTCC Donington Race One results

Main Information Additional Data Additional Data Driver Info

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Main Information Additional Data 1  -  2
Cla	Driver	#		Car	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h	Retirement	Points
1	T. Ingram Team Bristol Street Motors			Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	21	32'23.071				20
2	A. Sutton NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus ST	21	+2.485 32'25.556	2.485			17
3	J. Hill Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport			BMW 330e M Sport	21	+4.239 32'27.310	1.754			15
4	C. Turkington Team BMW			BMW 330e M Sport	21	+8.148 32'31.219	3.909			13
5	R. Pearson Team Bristol Street Motors			Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	21	+9.153 32'32.224	1.005			11
6	J. Cook LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	21	+11.511 32'34.582	2.358			10
7	A. Taylor-Smith Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing			Vauxhall Astra	21	+13.249 32'36.320	1.738			9
8	A. Morgan Team BMW			BMW 330e M Sport	21	+13.876 32'36.947	0.627			8
9	D. Cammish NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus ST	21	+14.382 32'37.453	0.506			7
10	A. Moffat LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	21	+19.036 32'42.107	4.654			6
11	A. Watson Toyota Gazoo Racing UK			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	21	+19.488 32'42.559	0.452			5
12	T. Chilton Team Bristol Street Motors			Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	21	+20.750 32'43.821	1.262			4
13	M. Doble Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing			Vauxhall Astra	21	+23.198 32'46.269	2.448			3
14	D. De Unlimited Motorsport			Cupra León	21	+23.666 32'46.737	0.468			2
15	C. Smiley Restart Racing			Cupra León	21	+24.629 32'47.700	0.963			1
16	N. Halstead Team Bristol Street Motors			Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	21	+26.388 32'49.459	1.759
17	S. Sumpton Restart Racing			Cupra León	21	+27.047 32'50.118	0.659
18	R. Huff Toyota Gazoo Racing UK			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	21	+27.259 32'50.330	0.212
19	D. Rowbottom NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus ST	20
dnf	S. Osborne NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus ST	0				Retirement
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