Reigning British Touring Car champion Tom Ingram topped free practice for the seventh round of the 2026 season on the Donington Park Grand Prix circuit.
Ingram, lying second in the points, has a mountain to climb to catch runaway championship leader Ash Sutton, but looked on good form at the wheel of his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback.
He set a 1m33.644s on medium compound Goodyear tyres – with medium and hard mandated for the competitive elements of the weekend.
For free practice, competitors were also able to use soft rubber carried over from previous race weekends – Ingram had a set of these bolted on, and lowered the standard to 1m33.490s.
Ingram’s earlier medium best meant that the pre-qualifying bragging rights looked to be heading his way, only for Mikey Doble to stamp in a 1m33.592s at the chequered flag in his Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon – although that wasn’t the quickest time of the session, it was the fastest on tyres eligible for use in competition.
Doble had been nowhere prior to that effort, his previous best 1.2s slower.
Tom Ingram, Team VERTU
Photo by: JEP
The rebranded CPRL Mercedes A35 Saloon team looked on strong form on its first weekend without team founder Jason Plato. Dan Rowbottom improved to third fastest late in the session, while Adam Morgan was fifth.
In between the Mercs – which were running in a new black livery this weekend – was the West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport of Charles Rainford, who was at the sharp end all session and ended up fourth.
Sixth was the Speedworks Motorsport-run Laser Tools Toyota Corolla GR Sport of Aron Taylor-Smith, with Sutton in the fastest of the Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titaniums in seventh. Sutton also popped in the fastest time on hard tyres at the end of the session, with a 1m34.066s.
Next up were two more of the Excelr8 Hyundais, with Ricky Collard eighth and Tom Chilton ninth.
Completing the top 10 with a last-gasp effort on soft tyres was Josh Cook in his Speedworks Toyota. The West Countryman caused the only red flag of the session when a crank sensor problem stranded him on the track, and returned to the fray with just a couple of laps remaining at the end of the session.
Apart from the CPRL Mercs, another pair of cars running a different livery this weekend are the Alliance Fords of Dan Cammish and Sam Osborne – Valvoline paintwork meant some were confused when Paul Radisich didn’t jump out of either car at the end of the session!
BTCC Donington Park – Practice results
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– The Autosport.com Team
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