Ingrams holds off Cammish for race one win

Toyota Gazoo Racing UK's Tom Ingram has opened his 2020 BTCC victory account after beating Honda's Dan Cammish to the race one win at Thruxton.

Simon Evans

20 Sep 2020

iTom Ingram (GBR) - Toyota Gazoo Racing UK with Ginsters Toyota Corolla
© Gary Hawkins

Toyota Gazoo Racing UK's Tom Ingram has opened his 2020 British Touring Car Championship victory account after beating Honda's Dan Cammish to the race one win at Thruxton.

Ingram started the race from second on the grid but immediately moved into the lead after powering ahead of the slow starting Cammish by turn one.

With the gap hovering at just under a second for the majority of the race, Ingram looked relatively comfortable in the lead ahead of Cammish, with Matt Neal and Adam Morgan following a handful of seconds further behind.

However, as the race reached its crescendo, Ingram's Toyota Corolla looked to be more of a handful through the high speed corners. Indeed, a couple of small errors from Ingram on the exit of Church corner allowed Cammish to close in further for a grandstand finish.

Cammish did get close enough to half-attempt a last corner lunge around the outside of the race leading Toyota, but was never quite close to trouble Ingram.

Ingram eventually crossed the line 0.6s ahead of Cammish and moves up to fourth in the points standings as virtue of his first win of the season.

Three-time champion Neal finished in third to record his first podium finish of 2020, while Adam Morgan scored fourth on his 250th BTCC race.

Crucially, Ash Sutton has emerged from the opening Thruxton race with the championship lead after reigning four-time champion Colin Turkington finished outside of the points with technical gremlins.

Turkington ran sixth past the halfway stage of the race, but the Team BMW driver rapidly fell down the field with what looked to be a loss of power with his BMW 330i M Sport.

Having already passed his title rival at that point, Sutton went on to demote Motorbase Performance's Rory Butcher for fifth. That move proved pivotal as the 2017 champion now leads the charge by a single point ahead of Turkington.

Butcher consolidated sixth ahead of Tom Chilton, while Tom Oliphant, Josh Cook and Michael Crees completed the remainder of the top-ten in eighth, ninth and tenth.