Speedworks Motorsport will be hoping to build on their impressive 2015 BTCC season, after re-signing Tom Ingram for the 2016 championship.
An exciting 2015 saw the team wind up ninth overall in the teams’ standings, and fourth in the running for the Independents’ trophy, with Ingram’s aggressive racing definitely a factor in the team’s success.
Ingram finished on the podium twice in the 2015 season, once after a mesmerising duel with Jason Plato at Rockingham.
“2015 was our most successful campaign to date in the BTCC,” said team Principal Christian Dick. “But we’re far from content to sit on our laurels and we need to make sure we continue pushing if we want to keep on moving forwards and accomplish our objectives.”
Speedworks have a comprehensive testing programme set out ahead of the championship’s season launch in March, which the team has never been able to afford before. Dick hopes this will help the team rise further up the ranks.
“A shortage of pre-season testing, due to lack of budget or deals coming together too late, has been an Achilles’ heel of ours over the past couple of years, and left us somewhat on the back foot, but hopefully 2016 will be a different story and the aim is to get up-to-speed nice and early so we really hit the ground running. There are a lot of new parts to get to grips with so, the more track time, the better.”
Dick also praised Ingram, whose talent has put the team in the position it finds itself in today. The team were of interest to a number of drivers after its impressive season, but chose to keep Ingram as their number one choice.
“He has grown tremendously as a driver… and his form at the end of last season was superb. Tom’s raw speed has never been in doubt, and his race craft is now almost the best in the business.”
“He shares our approach and he shares our goals, so keeping him on-bard this year was extremely high on our ‘to do’ list.”
Ingram himself was of interest to a number of other teams, but the driver chose to stick with Speedworks. He admitted having discussions with other teams, but said Speedworks was the place to be for 2016.
“For me, it was a complete no-brainer to stay with Speedworks,” he said. “The team’s work ethic is second to none; everybody is ultra-professional but at the same time they know how to have fun, which is important. This is hardly a cheap sport so you need to make sure you’re enjoying it or else you might as well not bother.
“The second half of last year was hugely positive for us, and it was encouraging to see all the development that we had put in paying off. Our performance just got better and better, which shone through in the results with two podiums from the last three race weekends. From our point of view, the season ended too soon because we were on a roll!”
Feature Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/carryfiasco
