The Power Maxed Racing pairing of Dave Newsham and Josh Cook were pleased with the pace of their machines during the British Touring Car Championship’s visit to Thruxton, despite their weekend showing being hampered by incidents.
After securing three top-ten results at Donington Park three weeks ago, the duo showed impressive pace for a second-successive weekend at Thruxton, with Newsham at one stage posting the joint-fastest time in qualifying – before his lap was deleted for exceeding track limits – while Cook again secured the Jack Sears trophy, awarded to the highest-placing rookie, with a brace of ninth-place finishes.
The weekend was far from incident-free for the team, however, with Newsham involved in a tangle with Team BMR owner and driver Warren Scott in the opening race, before he again received contact – this time from team-mate Cook – in the third race, recovering to score a second 12th-place finish.
But while those incidents had hindered his performance in the day’s three races, Newsham was nevertheless upbeat about the weekend’s showing, with the team’s pair of Chevrolet Cruze performing competitively once more.
“It’s definitely a weekend of mixed fortunes as we had cracking pace throughout,” he reflected. “I have never been involved with a team that has delivered such an improvement from FP1 to qualifying.
“Our pace was evident as I’ve gained nearly 20 places via overtakes throughout the races this weekend. We’ve had some drama though – I will be watching the ITV Highlights to see the hefty punt I received from Warren Scott that took me out of in race one, plus a collision with my team mate cost me places in race three.
“I appreciate Josh’s contact with me was an accident, this won’t change the way we work together – it’s been great so far and it will continue that way for the rest of the season I’m sure.”
Despite being pleased to have been the highest-placed rookie for a second race weekend in a row, Cook was disappointed not to have scored more points over the weekend, while also apologising for the contact with his team-mate.
“It’s been great to win the Jack Sears Trophy for the second round in succession, a true credit to the team who have been on the ball as always,” said the 23 year-old. “[But] The weekend has not gone to plan as I took a trip across the grass in race two, managing to save the car but that cost grid places and I also had a coming together with my teammate Dave in race three.
“I would like to say how sorry I am to Dave for the incident; I was passing [Aiden] Moffat and fighting for position when I clipped the back of Dave, he controlled it beautifully but it cost him 6 places and that is just not right. There is nothing worse than contact with your teammate, Dave and I have a great relationship and I want that to continue.”
But given that the team remains in its early stages of development, Team Principal Adam Weaver was pleased with a second weekend of competitive showing from his outfit.
“It’s good to see how well we are going in our third ever race meeting,” he said. “Our pace was well within the top ten, yes we have had more than our fair share of incidents, but that is racing. Between Dave’s blistering pace in qualifying and Josh’s continued Jack Sears Trophy wins, it’s payback for doing things right.”