Ingram storms to maiden Hyundai pole with record-breaking lap

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 Park.

Having endured a tricky previous round at Thruxton, 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 Hyundai i30N driver hit the front early in the session with an already blistering 1.25.669s lap. However, Ingram 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 further chance of knocking the Hyundai runner from the top-spot.

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

Although the Toyota Corolla driver missed out on pole by 0.2s, second position 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 timesheets 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 found 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 Dynamics 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 Shedden, who also suffered with track limit time deletions.

Having struggled for pace all day, Team BMW's Colin Turkington looked as though he extracted all that he could from his BMW 330e M Sport to qualify in ninth position ahead of championship leader Josh Cook in tenth.

Cook sat as high as fourth 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.