Josh Cook praised the setup on his Toyota Corolla after claiming his fourth British Touring Car Championship pole position in qualifying at Donington Park on Saturday.
Cook was on the pace throughout the qualifying session, which took place on a dry track but after rain earlier in the day left some areas damp, and duly converted that pace into a first pole of the year and his fourth overall.
The Speedworks Motorsport driver ended up less than a tenth ahead of BMW’s Colin Turkington, and praised a series of setup changes his team made when he was in the pits during Q2.
“The car was really good and I could just make it do what I wanted and make it dance around to get a lap time out of it,” said Cook. “I’ve got to catch my breath because it was all going on inside the car!
“Making the changes to give me what I want is really crucial for any driver. It’s a case of making sure we hit the spot with the car and go in the right direction at the right time.
“To get through to the final part [of qualifying] we quickly did a bunch of setup changes on the car and it was super close to getting it done, so credit to the team for really turning it around quickly otherwise I don’t think we’d have quite had that edge.
“I’m really happy, really pleased for the team but we need to convert this tomorrow now.”
Cook, who had three times previously made it into the final part of qualifying this year, highlighted the importance of not stepping out of line on a day at Donington which had been affected by the weather conditions.
“It’s one of those times where it’s risk versus reward. You know that you’ve got to be on the track at the end when it’s at its best to produce the lap and round here, on the high speed sections, if you run a couple of inches wide you’re on the wet stuff and you’re just a passenger.
“It’s so easy to make a mistake; it’s about picking the right times to push and extract some time out of the car. So many times we get it wrong but luckily today it went really well.”