TOM Ingram secured three podium finishes in as many races driving in the latest round of the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC).
The Coventry driver finish second in race two and third in races one and three to come away from Oulton Park with a significant haul of points.
Ingram closed the gap on early BTCC leader Ash Sutton to 48 points in the drivers’ standings.
And Ingram believes further tweaks to his Team Vertu car will strengthen his chances of retaining the BTCC title when the competition returns following a summer break.
Ingram said: “We’ve got as much out of the weekend as we could have done really.
“The goal was always to come into the weekend and extract as many points as we could with a slightly unfavourable TTB.
“Other than doing slightly better in qualifying, we couldn’t have really asked for much more, I feel very chuffed.
“If we can keep doing 10 points a round then it’s definitely doable. It’s a tough order but we have an incredibly fast car which is really encouraging.
“The disappointing thing is I’ve had this car all year, I’ve just not been able to show it.
“We’ve ended the first stage of the season really good. You want to go into the back end of the season in a strong position which is what we’ve done.
“We’ve got a few bits and pieces that we’re keen to get done with the car that we’ve not quite had a chance to do.
“I’m looking forward to what we can do in the second half of the season. I think we should be even stronger.”
Ingram battled to a third-place finish in race one after qualifying fourth on the grid and pushed Josh Cook all the way as the latter took second behind race winner Dan Cammish.
And Ingram stepped onto the podium again in race two on the hard tyre as he passed Cammish to take second behind race winner Sutton.
The Coventry driver secured a third podium finish in race three as Ingram finished behind Team Vertu teammate Ricky Collard while Charles Rainford took the race victory.
The BTCC season continues at Thruxton on the weekend of July 25 and 26.
