Josh Cook delighted by first double success

Josh Cook admitted he was delighted to secure a first double win in his BTCC career, even though there was only the opportunity to celebrate once on the top step of the podium at Croft.

The BTC Racing driver headed for North Yorkshire having endured a mixed campaign to date, with a win at Thruxton being the high but a number of lows – including a lost win at Oulton Park and his high-speed shunt at Knockhill.

Cook was on the pace from the moment practice kicked off for the seventh meeting of the year, and qualifying saw him secure a first pole for the team after the exclusion of Tom Ingram’s Toyota from the results.

Despite the close attentions of Jake Hill, Cook secured his second win of the campaign with a lights-to-flag victory in race one and then looked set to repeat the feat until a last lap lunge from Matt Neal saw him steal the place on the final lap of race two.

Neal however would then be given a time penalty for the move that saw Cook promoted back into first place – marking the first time in his BTCC career that he has taken two wins on a weekend.

He then rounded out the weekend with eighth in the reverse grid final race to move up to tenth in the championship standings.

“We came out of the blocks quite quickly in free practice,” he said. “We’ve worked on the engine and other bits and pieces since Silverstone. Everything that we’ve done has been positive. We’ve taken a step forward on the power train and we’re still testing stuff set-up wise.

“We were fairly confident after FP2 that we’d be somewhere in the mix in the dry in qualifying. As soon as it rained we didn’t know what to expect, so pole position was a great result.

“Race one was a great lights-to-flag victory, and with the fastest lap. We had the maximum ballast for race two so I just needed to control it. Jake caught me a little bit, so I backed him up to Ash [Sutton] and left them to battle it out.

“When Matt Neal tapped me out of the way it was a bit of a kick in the teeth as we didn’t get to celebrate over the line. It was just a shame as this weekend was my first, and the team’s first, double win – and also the team’s first pole position in qualifying.

“It was nice to have a selection of decent results and to get something that we deserve this year. I think we’ve taken a turn. We’ve developed things and we’re on the front foot rather than the back foot.”