BTCC: Ingram storms to maiden Hyundai pole with record-breaking lap

Tom Ingram romps to a maiden Hyundai BTCC pole position after breaking Jason Plato's long-standing qualifying lap-record at Oulton Park.
Tom Ingram (GBR) - Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com Hyundai
Tom Ingram (GBR) - Bristol Street Motors with EXCELR8 TradePriceCars.com Hyundai

EXCELR8 Motorsport's Tom Ingram has revitalised his British Touring Car Championship title challenge after storming to a first-ever Hyundai pole position in the series in qualifying at Oulton P𓄧ark.

Having endured a tricky previous round at Th♉ruxton, Ingram has bounced back in sensational fashion after producing a record-breaking lap to secure pole position for Sunday's opening Oulton Park race.

The Hyun🐎dai i30N driver hit the front early in the session with an already blistering 1.25.669s lap. However, Ingꦛram went even faster during his second sequence of runs and subsequently broke Jason Plato's long-standing pole position lap record with a 1.25.468s lap.

A late red flag with five-minutes to go meant the session was extended by a further five-minutes, which ✅gave Ingram's closest challengers one furthe🦩r chance of knocking the Hyundai runner from the top-spot.

But Ingram's lap proved too hard to beat, with Toyota Gaz𓂃oo Racing UK's Rory Butcher coming closest to𓃲 dipping beneath it in second position.

Although the Toyota Corolla driver missed out on pole by 0.2s, second positi𒁃on still marks Butcher's best result of the year so far.

Dan Lloyd made it two Hyundais in the top-three after charging up the t♊imesheets with a string of late fliers. Ingram and Lloyd set the timing screen alight in tandem during what has been the Hyundai i30N's strongest qualifying in the BTCC so far.

Adam Morgan consolidated his strong practice form to secure a place on the second-row in fourth🐲 position, while defending champion Ash Sutton rescued his session late in the day to line-up in fifth for race one.

At one stage, Sutton foundও himself languishing on the fringes of the top-ten order before producing a lap which was good enough for fourth at the time.

Dan Rowbottom was sixth fastest for the Team Dyn🐓amics Honda squad ahead of NAPA Racing UK's Dan Cammish in seventh.

Cammish had looked to have secured a place on the second-row of the grid after jumping to third late in the session, but the Ford Focus driver saw his time deleted for track limits,🍌 which dropped him back to seventh.

He shares the fourth row with three-time champion Gordon Sh🐟edden, who also suffered with trac🀅k limit time deletions.

Having struggled for pace all day, Team BMW's Colin T🌸urkington looked as though he extracted all that he could from his BMW 330e M Sport to qualify in ninth position ahead of championship leඣader Josh Cook in tenth.

Cook sat as high as foꦫurth in the timesheets, but the Rich Energy BTC Racing driver failed to improve 🍰on his early lap and fell down the pecking order as the session progressed.

 

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