TOM Ingram enjoyed a hat-trick of top ten finishes at Knockhill last weekend as he and Bucks rival Jack Goff continue to impress in the British Touring Car Championship.

Goff finished 14th, 17th and 12th over the Bank Holiday to sit 14th in the overall standings, while Ingram is now just a point behind him after the best set of results of his rookie BTCC season.

Despite engine failure during practice and virtually a blind run at qualifying, Ingram managed to put together successive seventh place finishes in races one and two before a third top ten closed out a fine weekend’s work.

He said: “It was really encouraging to achieve three top tens for the first time in the BTCC, and fantastic to have been in the fight for the podium in two of the races around a track that we didn’t anticipate would be one of our better ones.

“It was a sizeable step forward and hopefully we can take another one next time because I’m not going to be completely happy until I’m on the highest step of the rostrum.”

Ingram travelled to Scotland with good memories after winning at Knockhill on his first visit in the Ginetta Juniors four years ago.

He said: “I really enjoy the challenge that Knockhill presents. It’s a real rollercoaster ride, but we knew we would be in for a struggle in qualifying after missing most of practice.

“I was actually very surprised that we managed to line up as near to the front as we did considering the car was still a long way from where we wanted it to be.

“We worked hard and made some set-up changes overnight though, and that really paid off as we had mega pace in race one.

“I was hoping we might be able to sneak into the top ten, so I was over the moon to finish seventh.

“There was a lot of action all around and I really had to get my elbows out at times, but the car just felt amazing.

“I tried to make as much early progress as I could in race two, knowing that the performance of the soft tyres would drop off towards the end, and to catch and latch onto the battle for the podium was awesome.”

Ingram was on course for an even better finish in race three, when he started fourth on the reverse grid and then swiftly moved up to third.

At one stage second looked within his grasp, but his tyres lost grip in the latter stages of the race as he dropped back through the field.

He said: “That was a frustrating way to conclude the weekend, as we could have come away with so much more.”