Ingram claimed the BTCC title for the first time in the final race last year at the wheel of his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N and, after the cars arrived in parc ferme, outgoing champion Ash Sutton peeled the #1 sticker off the window of his Motorbase Performance-run Ford Focus ST and stuck it onto Ingram’s car.
Ingram has always raced with the #80 – his only previous outright crowns came in Ginetta Junior in 2010 and in the Ginetta GT Supercup in 2013, both series from which he immediately graduated up the ladder.
“The #1 was such a decision to take,” Ingram told Autosport.
“It sounds bizarre, because #80 is what I’ve carried forever in every single car, it’s the number that I carried on my go-kart. That’s my number, that’s me!
“The decision that we made was to go with the #1 for a couple of reasons: the lovely gesture that Ash made at the end of the season by taking the number off his car and sticking it on mine, it would have felt wrong not to carry that forwards, because it was such a beautiful moment; and we also may never get another chance to defend a title, and what a privilege to be able to do it.”
Source: Autosport