Josh Cook hoping to be ‘in with a shout’ of the title after strong Croft pace

Josh Cook is hoping he can be ‘in with a shout’ of fighting for this year’s British Touring Car Championship title, after a Croft weekend which saw him claim his second victory of the season.

Cook showed strong single-lap pace on Saturday, topping second practice before qualifying his Speedworks Motorsport-run Toyota in ninth for the opening race.

Although his progress was limited in the opener, thanks to electing to get the less favourable hard tyre out of the way early on, Cook nonetheless gained one place to take eighth.

On the soft rubber for race two, Cook scythed his way up to second by lap six, posting the fastest lap of the race on the way, to sit on stable-mate Rob Huff’s bumper.

Three laps from the finish, Cook passed Huff for the lead at the high-speed Jim Clark Esses and went on to win by just under a second to record his second win of the season.

Drawn to start from eighth for the final race of the day, Cook moved up one place to finish in seventh, having had to endure racing with the least hybrid of anyone after his earlier success.

Although Cook dropped a further three points behind the series leader with his weekend results, he believes that with the developments his team found during the summer break, he could still be in with a shout of the title if he can maintain his form.

“We’ve definitely found some pace over the summer break,” said Cook, who stays fifth in the standings, now 61 points behind leader Tom Ingram. “Croft is a very difficult track – such a mixture of different challenges – but the Toyota felt mega and we had strong speed all weekend.

“Saturday didn’t quite go to plan – I think we really had a car to fight for the front row of the grid in qualifying – but with the way the championship regulations work, we got a second chance in race two and we seized that opportunity with both hands.

“Rob could have made my life much harder but he didn’t, so huge thanks to him for that. Being a team-mate, you want to make sure you don’t do anything silly, and I knew where the strengths in both his and my set-up were so I had to think about that whilst driving around to figure out where I could capitalise.

“I was really pleased to not only take another win for myself but more importantly a one-two for Speedworks – that was fantastic.

“The bottom line is that we’re edging the Corolla into a window where it better suits my driving style and that in-turn allows me to extract more out of it, so now we need to keep on developing in the same direction.

“If we do that, we’ll be in with a shout.”

Team Principal Christian Dick was pleased to see the team’s summer break developments paying off at the North Yorkshire venue.

“I must say, I think I gained a few grey hairs on Sunday when Josh and Rob went wheel-to-wheel for the lead at one of the fastest parts of the circuit, but being the experienced and skilful drivers that they are, there wasn’t so much as the slightest contact and they put on a magnificent display for the fans watching trackside and on TV,” said Dick.

“After all the hard work put in by everybody back at base during the mid-season break, to see two of our cars vying for victory like that was tremendously rewarding and really corroborated the steps we have taken with the Toyota.

“Croft is an excellent ‘test bed’ for new developments with its wide variety of corner types, and I think it’s safe to say the Corolla passed that test with flying colours.”