Ingram romps to convincing race one Oulton Park victory

EXCELR8 Motorsport's Tom Ingram romped to a convincing lights-to-flag British Touring Car Championship race one victory at Oulton Park to move back up to second place in the championship battle.

The Hyundai i30N driver started the race from pole position and looked just as dominant as he did in Saturday's qualifying to secure a 21st career BTCC race victory ahead of defending champion Ash Sutton in second.

Amazingly, Ingram's race one win is the first time the 28-year-old has stood on the podium at Oulton Park.

Ingram controlled the race throughout and despite seeing his lead wiped out by a safety car phase, thanks to an incident between Adam Morgan and Gordon Shedden, the Hyundai driver re-extended his advantage with ease to eventual 3.3s win over Sutton in second.

Behind the runaway leader Ingram, Sutton produced a champion's drive to clinch his fourth podium finish on the bounce after rising from fifth on the grid to second.

The Ford driver capitalised on an error from Dan Lloyd, who was running in third, shortly after the restart to muscle his way onto the podium before demoting Toyota Gazoo Racing UK's Rory Butcher a handful of laps later for P2.

Butcher had run in second the vast majority of the race, but his podium chances unravelled in just one corner after the Toyota Corolla driver fell behind both Sutton and Shedden at the Island hairpin.

Three-time champion Shedden eventually completed the podium order in third, despite a mid-race skirmish with Adam Morgan, which saw the BMW driver end his race in the barrier on the exit of Lodge corner.

Butcher held on to finish in fourth, but only just after a rejuvenated Colin Turkington moved up from ninth to a fifth place finish.

Team BMW's Turkington spent the last segment of the race glued to the rear of Butcher's Toyota, but the four-time champion couldn't quite find his way past the Scotsman.

Dan Cammish finished in sixth position for the Motorbase NAPA Racing UK Ford outfit ahead of Hyundai's Lloyd in seventh.

Despite finishing in seventh, Lloyd was the fastest driver on the circuit, but the EXCELR8 Motorsport driver squandered his chance of finishing on the podium after making an error when trying to get past Butcher for second position.

BTC Racing's Josh Cook retained his championship lead in eighth position, ahead of Dan Rowbottom and Stephen Jelley who completed the top-ten order in ninth and tenth.