Josh Cook has laid the blame for his race two exit with Jason Plato, after the two made contact on the opening lap of the second British Touring Car Championship race at Rockingham.
Both drivers retired on the first lap at the Deene Hairpin, with Cook trying to pass the Subaru driver on the outside line.
When asked by TouringCars.Net for his views on the incident, Cook was resolute as to where the blame laid.
“I couldn’t turn into Turn 2 because Jason Plato was there,” said Cook. “Yes I was on the outside, but at some point I’ve still got to turn into the corner.
“It felt like if I wasn’t there he wasn’t going to slow down. Perhaps he was a bit over-ambitious on the brakes, I don’t know.
“The blame was in my door. I haven’t seen the whole thing from the outside, but from where I was sat that’s what it felt like.”
Plato, however, claims he simply had nowhere to go through the corner, explaining that he felt the need to be extra defensive into the corner due to the straight-line speed of the cars behind him on the approach to the corner.
“As we came out of Turn 1 I could see all the others starting to charge down, so I elected to defend the inside line aggressively so that no-one would try to get up the inside,” said Plato to TouringCars.Net.
“The corner becomes very tight, and all of the other cars were still charging down towards the apex, and effectively what happened was they came into the piece of road that I had to use. We made contact which broke my steering and then I just needed to get out of the way.
“People are racing, it’s wide, into a tight turn, and I had to brake early whilst they’re coming in. It’s just one of those things.”