Josh Cook on top as Croft action kicks off

Josh Cook posted the quickest time for the One Motorsport squad as the second half of the BTCC season got underway with the opening practice session of the weekend at Croft.

The 40 minutes of running would be affected by light rain showers throughout but the majority of the field was able to turn timed laps – the two exceptions being the Team HARD Cupras of Nicolas Hamilton and series newcomer Daryl DeLeon.

Cook’s quick time in his Honda Civic would come late on in the session and allowed him to edge ahead of Colin Turkington’s BMW by just 0.030s, with Ash Sutton’s Motorbase-run NAPA Racing Ford Focus only 0.019s further back.

The top three would have a gap over the pack behind, which was headed by the BMW of Jake Hill.

Hill – double winner last time out at Oulton Park – was just over half a second off the pace and led a gaggle of cars covered by little more than two-tenths of a second.

Rory Butcher’s Toyota was fifth quickest ahead of the second Focus in the hands of Dan Cammish, with Tom Chilton, Aron Taylor-Smith, Dan Lloyd and Dan Rowbottom rounding out the top ten.

Lower down the order, Tom Ingram was 20th on the timesheets in his Hyundai.

On his return to the series, Michael Crees was 17th quickest in his Cupra, with the Honda of Jade Edwards in 24th – albeit having only run a timed lap right at the end of the session when the showers were at their heaviest.