Tom Ingram beat Ash Sutton to victory within the first race of the British Touring Automobile Championship spherical at Oulton Park.
However the end result appears doubtful following two second-lap incidents that may most certainly be seemed into by the officers.
Ingram obtained an honest getaway from pole place in his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback, however front-row accomplice Ash Sutton’s Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus ST was immediately on the offensive.
On lap two, reigning and four-time champion Sutton tried a lunge down the within of the Island hairpin, however there wasn’t sufficient room to squeeze by way of and call put 2022 title winner Ingram right into a slide.
Sutton now had the momentum on the within line to the chicane, however Ingram tried to show in from the surface.
There was extra contact, and Ingram elected to steer out of the chicane and lower the corners – as he controversially did final trip at Thruxton.
The 2 stayed shut for half the race, earlier than Ingram eked out a margin of over a second, ultimately crossing the end line 1.913 seconds in entrance.
Picture by: Jakob Ebrey – JEP
Of the incident on the chicane, Ingram remarked: “I deployed hybrid coming down the hill, and that time I’ve obtained no possibility aside from to make contact and leap by way of the chicane. It’s all the time very difficult.
“After that, I used to be on the mercy of the tyres, I used to be on the mercy of the brakes, I used to be on the mercy of the whole lot. There was rather a lot to attempt to handle, however it’s good to take the primary win of the day.”
Sutton stated: “Tom left the door open on the hairpin and I opened that door – there was slight contact but when a door is open a automotive’s going to fill it.”
On what occurred on the chicane, Sutton quipped: “I feel he ought to take up rallycross with the quantity of joker laps he’s doing nowadays.”
Dan Cammish, within the second of the Alliance Fords, survived a bump with Tom Chilton on the first nook and remained near the main duo for the primary few laps, the Berkshire-domiciled Yorkshireman additionally gaining the bonus level for quickest lap.
Cammish then got here underneath assault from Jake Hill in his Laser Instruments-liveried West Surrey Racing BMW 330e M Sport.
Hill had leapt from seventh on the grid to fifth initially, earlier than passing the Excelr8 Hyundai of Tom Chilton on the chicane on lap three to seize fourth.
He had simply moved into place to make a transfer on Cammish on the ninth lap when he locked up on the Island hairpin, the BMW working off monitor and dropping to sixth behind Dan Rowbottom’s Alliance Ford and the sister WSR BMW of Adam Morgan.
Rowbottom had two considerations within the closing laps – the looming attacking risk of Morgan, and a black-and-orange flag for a flapping right-rear wheelarch that went unheeded – earlier than taking fourth.
Chilton fell away to a distant seventh, however it was the struggle behind that might play a serious half within the final result of the forthcoming second race.
With the highest 10 in race one all pressured to make use of the toughest accessible Goodyear tyre from their allocation for race two, and an estimate 1.5-second delta between the laborious and the comfortable at this circuit, many of the runners from the midfield down opted to take the ache of getting their laborious rubber out of the way in which in race one.
Aron Taylor-Smith was the highest-placed of this group on the grid, and remained so within the race, however his Energy Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra needed to fend off the Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla of Josh {Cook} on the Dubliner’s solution to eighth place. {Cook}’s team-mate Aiden Moffat accomplished the highest 10.
Colin Turkington had bother getting his WSR BMW away from the grid on the formation lap, and initially correct he went nowhere. The four-time champion was wheeled into the pits earlier than becoming a member of in a single lap down.