Josh Cook was due to race this morning under appeal after giving his indication to appeal the decision of the stewards which led to his race ban after the Rockingham round under the three strikes rule to the National Court.
However, prior to the race, his team announced that they were withdrawing the appeal so he had to sit out the first race of the day.
Had Cook and the team continued with the appeal and lost, he would have lost all of the points gained from this Silverstone weekend, the next Brands Hatch weekend and he would have had to miss the first race of next season.
The Triple Eight Racing statement confirmed: ‘Following careful consideration, having taken advice from both professional parties and sponsor partners, Triple Eight Racing has today taken the decision to withdraw its appeal against the one race ban handed down following the incident in Race Three at Rockingham, the penalty (not the reasoning) for which was upheld during the BTCC Steward’s hearing on Friday.
‘Whilst Triple Eight remain disappointed with the ultimate outcome, namely that although the hering fully vindicated Josh Cook in terms of accepting that there was no intent, rather that the penalised loss of control was the result of an issue with the race engineered MG6, the competition regulation Q14.4.4 provides no alternative but to apportion responsibility to the driver.’