BTCC Croft: Cook dominates qualifying race

Josh Cook took Saturday glory in the British Touring Car Championship at Croft with an all-the-way victory from pole position in the qualifying race.

Cook only slotted his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport onto pole position at the chequered flag, when he finally completed a lap that was not deleted due to track limits – always a hot potato at the North Yorkshire circuit.

With the full 20 seconds per lap of TOCA Turbo Boost available to him, Cook was always the favourite to claim the half-points race. Starting alongside him on the front row was the Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium of Dan Cammish, who had been miffed to have his front-row start slot turned into the fifth rank thanks to a track-limits deletion, only to have his time reinstated. But the Berkshire-domiciled Yorkshire native had access to just 5s per lap of TTB.

The man on the move at the start was Ash Sutton. The championship leader’s own track-limits lap loss in qualifying had dumped him from third on the grid to fifth, but his Alliance Ford immediately passed the Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback of Tom Ingram at the start, then zapped the Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon of Mikey Doble into the Jim Clark Esses to get to third.

Sutton, with a mere 1s per lap of TTB, latched onto Cammish, but such is his dominant position in the championship that the focus is more on boosting Cammish’s bid for the series runner-up position.

Cammish therefore never came under serious threat, while Cook was able to keep the two Fords at arm’s length before taking victory by 1.203 seconds.

“I’m really pleased for all of us at Speedworks Corolla Racing,” said the West Countryman. “The start was a bit hectic – we always struggle against the Fords until we get TTB on lap two, so I’ve just got to defend for lap one and then settle into position.

“It’s pretty hard on the tyres around here, but the Corolla looks after them really well.”

A recurrence of Doble’s Donington electrical problems on lap two allowed Ingram – on 3s per lap of TTB – up to fourth and, by setting fastest lap, he managed to catch up with third-placed Sutton.

Then a mistake at Sunny In on the penultimate lap sent the Hyundai wide and onto the grass, and allowed Daryl De Leon into fourth place with his West Surrey Racing BMW 330i M Sport.

Ingram fought back and tried to repass the Anglo-Filipino on the final lap, sending the Hyundai around the outside at Tower. But contact between the duo on exit forced the reigning champion to settle for fifth, with De Leon claiming fourth.

Aiden Moffat was sixth in his PMR Audi ahead of the Excelr8 Hyundai of Ricky Collard, while Dan Rowbottom in the best of the CPRL Mercedes A35 Saloons was close behind them in eighth.

Knockhill and Donington winner Adam Morgan, in the other CPRL Mercedes, was splitting the Restart Racing Hyundais in the battle on the fringe of the top 10 when a run wide at Hawthorns let ninth-placed Chris Smiley off the hook and allowed Dan Lloyd into 10th position.

BTCC Croft – Qualifying race results

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