Cook takes BTCC Race to Pole at Croft

Josh Cook won the Race To Pole for the British Touring Car Championship weekend at Croft Circuit, fending off the dual NAPA Racing UK attack of Dan Cammish and Ash Sutton.

Corolla Racing UK driver Cook topped timed qualifying to start the race that decided the grid for the first of three championship rounds on Sunday and made a strong start as Cammish initially faced pressure from Mikey Doble.

Doble, however, was soon passed by Sutton – who'd already got by Tom Ingram at the start – at the Jim Clark Esses, with the two NAPA Fords setting about challenging Cook. But with the first lap out of the way, Cook was then able to put his Toca Turbo Boost (TTB) to good use and maintain a gap to Cammish and Sutton, who both had less TTB available as a result of their stronger positions in the championship standings.

“Obviously the start of the race was a bit hectic,” said Cook. “We always struggle against the Fords until we've got TTB on lap two, so [we’ve] just got to defend for lap 1, try and hold position, and then it's just settle into a bit of a rhythm, look after the tires – it's pretty hard on tyres around here, but yeah, the Corolla looked after the tires really well, so I'm happy.

Cammish and Sutton finished second and third, with WSR's Daryl DeLeon fourth after a late pass on Ingram.

Ingram had recovered from losing out to Sutton early on the be right on the tail of the championship leader by lap seven of the 11-lap contest, but three laps later ran deep into Sunny allowing DeLeon to get by. Ingram held on for fifth, and also took the fastest lap, the Team Vertu Hyundais finding pace after a trying weekend last time out at Donington Park.

Aiden Moffat was sixth ahead of Ricky Collard in another Team Vertu Hyundai, with Daniel Rowbottom eighth for CPRL.

Restart Racing's Chis Smiley and Daniel Lloyd completed the top 10, ahead of Charles Rainford in the other WSR BMW and Adam Morgan – winner of three of the last three championship rounds – in the second CPRL Mercedes.

After challenging in the top-five on lap one, Doble wound up 21st after slowing on the second lap and coming to a stop at the penultimate corner. After resetting his car, he was able to continue and finish the race.

Looking ahead to Sunday’s first race, Cook feels that if he could repeat his tactics from Saturday, he’ll be in with a good chance of emulating his performance from Thruxton where he also converted a Race To Pole victory into a win in the first championship round of the weekend.

“I think it all counts off lap 1,” he said. “If we can hold position on lap 1, I think we'll be OK for Race 1. But who knows? We just have to wait and see.

“I'm comfortable in the car. Definitely going to do a few more little tweaks that we're allowed to do after qualifying, so looking forward to hopefully trying to calm it down just a little bit for me. But I'm really pleased, I'm really pleased for the team, we've had some disappointing races so far, but the team have always just dug deep. We've always bounced back, and I think today's proof of that.”

Watch all three BTCC races on Sunday live on RACER Network (Race 2) and the RACER+ App. See this week's Racing on TV page for air times.

QUALIFYING RACE RESULTS

QUALIFYING TIMES