TOM Ingram pipped his High Wycombe rival Jack Goff to the line in the British Touring Car Championships at Brands Hatch on Sunday to finish the championship as best rookie.

The pair had raced side by side for most of the season until Goff pulled away at the penultimate round at Silverstone when he finished ahead of Ingram in all three races.

However, Ingram saved his best until last and three top ten finishes out of three at the weekend, securing his best points haul all year, saw him storm back to edge out Goff by just two points in the driver charts.

The pair finished 14th and 15 in the overall standings, behind champion Colin Turkington, and Ingram says his debut season on tour has been a real eye-opener.

He said: “This whole season has been a big learning curve for me, not least from the point-of-view of adapting to a front wheel-drive car and settling into life in the BTCC.

“It’s been a rollercoaster ride at times, but we’ve ended on a positive note and hopefully we can carry this momentum forward now as we look to even more success in 2015.”

Mechanical problems dogged him during practice but the racing started for real Ingram was on pace and after dodging a multi-car mêlée at the first corner he quickly scythed past Nick Foster and James Cole to move up to eighth.

He hassled multiple European touring car champion Fabrizio Giovanardi right the way to the chequered flag to cement his return to the top ten.

Ingram ripped past Giovanardi at the start of race two to move up to sixth, and despite intense pressure from Aron Smith in the closing stages he held on to that position.

A penalty ahead of him subsequently moved him up to fifth, and he finished off a fine weekend with another top ten finish in race three when he handled the torrential conditions to take ninth.

“The rain was torrential in race three – there was so much spray being kicked up that you could barely even see where you were going most of the time.

“Some of it was quite literally just guesswork. I was relieved simply to get to the end, “We’d had a couple of tough weekends at Rockingham and Silverstone, so I was really keen to get back on-track at Brands Hatch and close the season out on a high.”

Meanwhile, Goff didn’t finish race one or race three but came home eighth in race two.