Ingram, who started from fourth on the grid, instantly moved up to third, then tracked down the BMWs of Tom Oliphant and Stephen Jelley of West Surrey Racing.

Jelley was leading from reverse grid pole ahead of Oliphant’s sister BMW, but got stuck in the Wilson hairpin on lap two.

Jelley then appeared to brake early for lefty Agostini, and Oliphant hit his back. Ingram’s Hyundai swept the outside in second, and Oliphant sped off thanks to contact with the Ford Focus from MB Motorsport from Ollie Jackson.

Ingram then played a waiting game before taking the decisive step over Jelley in Wilson in the fifth round of 12.

He was already 1.129 seconds ahead of Jelley at the end of that lap, and pulled the gap with Ash Sutton and Gordon Shedden, who had passed second and third, to win with 1.144s.

“It was a crazy start – probably one of the best I’ve ever made,” Ingram said.

“I had an idea of ​​who I needed from the start and started attacking people in front.

“I could see that Stephen was nervous and that Tom was desperate to move on – there was some inevitability in what happened.

“It’s a great weekend for the team – their first win and at home.”

Sutton, with 75kg of successful ballast aboard his Laser Tools Racing Infiniti, was moving up from seventh place on the grid, while Team Dynamics Honda from Shedden used the optional soft tires from 11th place on the grid. Grid.

A series of spectacular moves from Shedden took him to fourth in round four, behind Sutton, and he followed the defending champion ahead of Jelley with five laps to go.

Shedden had taken a huge blow in the first lap when contacting Josh Cook’s Honda, who bent the steering, and chose not to attempt a risky move on Sutton to move up to second place.

Instead, the Scotsman settled for third place, the first podium of his BTCC return season.

Cook, like Shedden, was on the optional tire with his Honda BTC Racing, and he made superb progress from 14th on the grid to fourth, but couldn’t catch up with the top three.

Jelley hung on for fifth place ahead of Rory Butcher’s Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla, while Colin Turkington lost ground in the first half of the race and brought his BMW WSR home in seventh.

This means Turkington lost their brief championship lead, with Sutton now two points behind Ingram and Turkington three points more.

Adam Morgan finished a solid weekend with eighth place in his BMW Ciceley Motorsport, as did Jack Goff in ninth place in his Team Hard Cupra.

The top 10 was completed by the second Honda Dynamics from Dan Rowbottom.

Points leader before the weekend, Jake Hill, returned to 12th place in his MB Ford, while teammate Jackson retired after his incident with Oliphant, who finished 16th.

Results of race 3: