Rory Butcher won the first race at Silverstone despite being disadvantaged by a wet grid slot.
The pole position grid slot was affected after a British Formula 4 car had an engine issue in which coolant was spread over that area of the track.
The marshalls successfully cleaned the area but left the pole position wet.
The grid was moved one row back but Butcher was always going to suffer through the second phase of his start.
Butcher started well but the wet patch meant he lost out on traction giving Ingram the lead into Copse.
The first lap was messy with Andy Neate spinning at Copse due to a puncture and Sam Smelt and Gordon Shedden made contact through Luffield putting both out of the race.
Butcher kept Ingram honest and on lap 3 made a great move into Brooklands giving Ingram no choice but the yield the corner.
Butcher started to open the gap to Ingram who in turn was being put under pressure by Dan Lloyd.
Ingram was able to keep Lloyd behind but was starting to become a cork-in-the-bottle with Aiden Moffat, Josh Cook, Colin Turkington and Ash Sutton all joining the queue.
As with the rest of the season, race 1 isn’t the race to take risks and the order at the front didn’t change with Butcher pulling away to win by 3.262s from Ingram and Lloyd.
Moffat kept the pressure on Lloyd but couldn’t find a way past but was able to finish in fourth ahead of Cook, Turkington and Sutton.
Dan Rowbottom, Stephen Jelley and Jason Plato completed the top 10.
Andrew Jordan, in the new-for-2022 hybrid Toyota Corolla, finished without any reliability issues.
Silverstone Race 1 Results
- Rory Butcher 21:21.142
- Tom Ingram +3.262s
- Dan Lloyd +3.666s
- Aiden Moffat +4.263s
- Josh Cook +6.674s
- Colin Turkington +6.929s
- Ash Sutton +7.379s
- Dan Rowbottom +8.113s
- Stephen Jelley +10.154s
- Jason Plato +10.564s
- Tom Oliphant +10.757s
- Ollie Jackson +16.981s
- Chris Smiley +17.270s
- Senna Proctor +17.621s
- Carl Boardley +18.009s
- Sam Osborne +18.763s
- Aron Taylor-Smith +19.410s
- Jack Butel +19.886s
- Jack Goff +23.460s
- Tom Chilton +23.822s
- Jake Hill +24.904s
- Jade Edwards +25.239s
- Rick Parfitt +26.015s
- Nic Hamilton +28.099s
- Andrew Jordan +30.593s
- Andy Neate DNF
- Adam Morgan DNF
- Gordon Shedden DNF
- Sam Smelt DNF
- Jack Mitchell DNF
