Tom Ingram says the pressure is off as he approaches the forthcoming Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship campaign, when the defending title-holder will seek to add a third career crown to his increasingly impressive résumé in the UK’s premier motor racing series.
 
Ingram was the indisputable cream of the BTCC crop last year, sealing the deal with a round to spare at Brands Hatch back in October, as a record-breaking points haul saw him add the 2025 trophy to the one he had already clinched in 2022.
 
Along the way, the Team VERTU star notched up no fewer than seven race wins – taking his overall victory count to 40, a tally bettered only by six other drivers in the championship’s near seven-decade history – and 11 further podium finishes. Underscoring his outstanding consistency, on just four occasions in 30 starts did he take the chequered flag outside of the top five in the high-calibre, 25-strong field.
 
It was by any measure a true masterclass, and Ingram has entered 2026 in much the same vein. Starting as he means to go on, he confidently topped the timesheets on the opening day of the first official pre-season test at Croft behind the wheel of his EXCELR8 Motorsport-prepared Hyundai i30N, dipping underneath his own qualifying lap record around the challenging North Yorkshire circuit that he established last summer.
 
After setting the pace in the dry, the talented Bucks-born ace also posted the theoretical fastest lap time in the wet later the same day, based upon every driver linking together their three quickest sectors.
 
In a series famed for its unpredictability, however, 2026 looks harder to call than ever before, with three new models of car on the starting grid and a raft of regulation changes, including a small but significant adjustment to the way TOCA Turbo Boost (TTB) works and – most notably – the introduction of the new Qualifying Race on Saturday afternoons.
 
Approximately 15 minutes in duration, the final classification of this will determine the grid positions for the first of three full-length contests the following day, with championship points on offer to the top ten finishers – injecting yet another element into the equation and promising to keep competitors constantly on their toes.
 
It is a challenge Ingram is relishing, and as he sets his sights on the successful acquisition of the most coveted prize in British motorsport once again, he has vowed to leave no stone unturned.
 
Battle will get underway this weekend (18/19 April) around Donington Park’s National Circuit – where the 32-year-old Coventry-based racer sped to a trio of runner-up results 12 months ago – followed by outings at Brands Hatch Indy (9/10 May), Snetterton (23/24 May), Oulton Park (6/7 June), Thruxton (25/26 July), Knockhill (8/9 August), Donington Park GP (22/23 August), Croft (5/6 September) and Silverstone (26/27 September), before concluding with the traditional season finale at Brands Hatch GP (10/11 October).
 
Saturday afternoon’s Qualifying session (14:00) and ‘Race to Pole’ (15:05) at Donington will both be streamed live worldwide on ITV Sport’s YouTube channel, with every moment of Sunday’s doorhandle-to-doorhandle action to be shown live and in high-definition on ITV4 and ITVX, beginning at 10:45. The full race day schedule will additionally be aired live around the globe on the BTCC YouTube channel, with the exception of the UK and North America, where there are existing broadcast agreements in-place.
 
Tom Ingram, Driver, Team VERTU, said: “I think we’re in good shape. Pre-season preparations have gone well. We were quick at Croft, and then in the second group test at Brands Hatch last week, we focussed on following our own programme – I don’t think I pressed the ‘boost’ button all day and we certainly didn’t chase any lap times.
 
“The package feels really strong; given how fast the Hyundai was last year, we’ve deliberately not made any major changes or tried to reinvent the wheel. You can never sit still, of course, because by doing that you go backwards, but it’s also all-too-easy to go backwards by interfering too much so you need to be sure the changes you make will have a positive effect.
 
“With that in mind, our approach over the winter has been more evolution than revolution, just chipping away at both performance and reliability through a really structured testing and development programme, and I’m very pleased with the progress we’ve made.
 
“With the introduction of a Saturday race halving our free practice time, it’ll be so important to hit the ground running right from the start of every weekend to ensure we’re as fully-prepared for qualifying as we can possibly be.
 
“There’s also obviously been a change to the way boost is deployed, meaning the disparity between having it and not having it will be greater than before and will make it even harder for those without to make much headway, so that will inevitably have an impact.
 
“I think we will see a lot more tactics in play this season, and it might be that it’s better to not lead the championship until the final weekend, or to sacrifice individual results along the way in favour of the bigger picture. I predict plenty of gamesmanship in that respect and we will need to be smarter than ever in terms of strategy – it will be vital as a team to make sure we leave absolutely nothing to chance.
 
“The level of competition looks super-high – we know the Fords will be strong and the BMWs are always there-or-thereabouts, and then there is the unknown of the new Mercedes and Audis – but we’ll get our first indication of where everybody is in the pecking-order in just a few days’ time.
 
“None of us really know quite how the new regulations will play out, but our aim as ever will be to get through the first weekend relatively unscathed and score as many points as possible to set ourselves up for a successful season.
 
“It goes without saying that the ultimate goal is to take the title again. Having now proved that we can win it more than once, I don’t feel the same pressure or emotion as I did heading into my first championship defence in 2023, which means we can go out there and really enjoy it – and then we’ll see where we end up come Brands Hatch in October.”