Josh Cook snares BTCC pole position at Donington Park

Josh Cook claimed his first British Touring Car Championship pole position of the 2024 season after topping the times in what was a frenetic qualifying session at Donington Park.

In what was a thrilling fight for top spot around the Grand Prix circuit, the Speedworks Motorsport driver set a best time of 1:33.498 to clinch bragging rights ahead of a pivotal race day tomorrow.

Despite his best efforts, four-time champion Colin Turkington could only get to within 0.071s of Cook in his pursuit of a third consecutive pole. Instead, the West Surrey Racing driver will line up on the outside of the front row for race one tomorrow.

Power Maxed Racing’s Mikey Doble was one of the drivers to watch throughout qualifying as he lit up the timesheets and his efforts behind the wheel of the Vauxhall Astra was rewarded with third place overall.

Hot on the heels of Doble in fourth and fifth was reigning title holder Ash Sutton and current series leader Tom Ingram, while Aron Taylor-Smith rounded out the top six.

Championship contender Jake Hill missed out on making it into the quick six shootout for pole position by the slender margin of 0.071s as he was bumped out of contention by Taylor-Smith in the closing stages of Q2.

Hill will look to fight forward from the fourth row of the grid and he will be joined on it by his BMW stablemate Adam Morgan, who finished eighth. Completing the top ten was the Ford Focus of Dan Cammish and Hyundai of Tom Chilton.

Further down the order, notable names that missed out from progressing into the top 12 included Dan Rowbottom – who had featured towards the top of the times in practice – and also the Toyota duo of Aiden Moffat and Andrew Watson.

Race one is scheduled to get underway at Donington Park at 11:30 on Sunday.