Points leader Ingram 'really pleased' with third-row qualifying run

British Touring Car Championship points leader Tom Ingram said he was pleased to qualify in sixth position for Sunday's first race at Brands Hatch, given the Hyundai driver had no hybrid deployment as virtue of being the championship leader.

The EXCELR8 Motorsport set a time which was good enough for a spot on the third row of the grid, just 0.2s adrift of Colin Turkington's pole time (47.539s).

Having no hybrid deployment in his arsenal, Ingram said sixth position was 'about as good as he could have hoped for'.

The Hyundai i30N driver carries a seven-point over three-time champion Gordon Shedden into the opening race of the day.

"I’m really pleased with that," Ingram told Crash.net. "With zero deployment of hybrid, I knew we were never going to be on the front row.

"To be where we are, I’m really pleased. The car has felt great all day. Nice to be tweaking and finding bits and pieces over the course of the day. Strong position for race day.

"No one had hybrid in FP1, so everyone was on the same level. FP2, we were trying things and people were starting to find their hybrid rhythm.

"Everyone had their last-minute tweaks in qualifying and we didn’t have any hybrid to use. In that sense, it was about as good as we could hope."

With the BMWs of Turkington and Jake Hill once again locking out the front-row, Ingram admitted he is hoping for a repeat of Donington Park where the West Surrey Racing duo tripped over themselves, which allowed the Hyundai runner to scythe ahead of the pair for the race one victory.

"Hopefully Jake [Hill] will play games with Colin [Turkington] again and those two will trip over each other and hopefully play back into our advantage," Ingram continued.

"Ultimately hybrid deployment is 10 seconds for each race this time. How much of a difference that will make, I don’t know. Hopefully its less. Let’s wait and see how it goes."