Josh Cook was pleased with a consistent weekend in the British Touring Car Championship last weekend at Oulton Park, although the One Motorsport driver admits he ‘wants more’ after missing out on a podium finish.
Cook qualified his Honda in seventh on the grid on Saturday, six and a half tenths of a second from pole, but in race one progress was challenging.
The 32-year-old moved up a place at the start, but ultimately stayed there for the remainder of the race to take the chequered flag in sixth.
In race two, with most of the field again using the soft tyre, Cook actually dropped a place at the start, but came on stronger towards the end of the race to take fifth.
The top seven were reversed for the final race, which should have given Cook third on the startline, but he had been handed a three-place grid penalty for an incident in race two, leaving him to start from sixth.
From there, Cook held sixth for the first half of the race, before losing out to team-mate Aiden Moffat and going on to finish in seventh on the harder compound rubber.
His results see Cook move up to sixth in the overall drivers’ championship standings, 93 points from the top of the table.
“That was a good weekend in terms of consistency and banking the points, but I always want more,” said Cook.
“It is always so hard to overtake at Oulton Park because of the nature of the track and so I was a bit stuck in the races themselves.
“Despite that, it is clear that the One Motorsport with Starline Racing crew and I are making the right kind of progress with the car.
“We have had so much learning to do over the start of the season with what is effectively a new chassis to us and a new engine and that means every event is a journey for us all, but solidly banking the points while we aim to get to the front is very positive.
“While it is nice to get onto the podium and collect the trophy for the Independents glory, I am always going to be striving to be on the very top and first overall.
“So long as we keep pushing and working in the way we have already been, I am very confident we will get there.”
Team Principal Steve Dudman put some of the team’s struggles down to strategy, with ultimately almost all drivers opting to run the hard tyre in race three, removing a degree of uncertainty and a potential overtaking aid, at the notoriously tough-to-pass Oulton Park, from race day.
“We have had a challenging weekend again,” said Dudman. “We have had a lot of situations where we had been dodging the weather and trying to get our strategy right for the rain which was supposed to be coming – but never did.
“Overall, Josh and Aiden put in a fantastic shift. We got the strategy right for Aiden, maybe more than we did for Josh, with the use of the soft tyres in race three.
“It was tough choice for everyone and you could see there were some strange choices going on up and down the grid.
“We are going to throw a few things at it [the summer tyre test], and we will keep pushing hard in every area of this entire programme. Success is what we are all hungry for.”