Ingram claims historic race three win with Toyota

Tom Ingram has taken his first British Touring Car Championship victory with the factory backed Toyota Corolla after producing a dominant performance in race three at Donington Park.

Ingram started the reverse grid race from pole position and handed Toyota their first BTCC victory since returning to the series as a fully-fledged manufacturer after leading every lap of the final race of the day.

Much of the opening half of the race was spent under the safety car as the marshals recovered two of the Team HARD Volkswagen CCs after Carl Boardley and Michael Crees both saw their races end in the barriers on the opening lap at Craner Curves.

Once the safety car peeled back in the pits on lap eight of the race, Ingram was quickly able to establish clean air between himself and the hard tyre running Audi of Jake Hill, who in turn was holding up the Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra of Rob Collard behind him.

Although Collard was able to pass Hill at the end of lap nine, by that time, Ingram had already assembled a race winning lead, which allowed the Team Toyota GB driver to control proceedings at the head of the field.

Despite Collard briefly setting the timing screens alight with the fastest lap of the race, Ingram was ultimately able to match his Vauxhall counterpart to eventually cross the line with a one-second margin for a historic first win with Toyota.

Second position also marked Collard's best finish with his new PMR squad on only his second weekend with the team, while BTC Racing's Josh Cook capped off a marvellous recovery following his race one woes to finish on the podium in third.

Rory Butcher took yet another solid points finish in fourth, while Ashley Sutton completed the top five order in fifth and emerges from Donington Park with the championship lead.

Jake Hill eventually down to a sixth place finish, but managed to hold off two-time champion Jason Plato in seventh.

Adam Morgan, Colin Turkington and Dan Cammish completed the remainder of the top-ten order in eighth, ninth and tenth.