Josh Cook cemented his status as the ‘King of Thruxton’ by leading from pole to the chequered flag in the Hampshire speedbowl’s British Touring Car Championship qualifying race.
Cook planted his Speedworks Motorsport Toyota Corolla GR Sport firmly on pole position and, owing to no restriction on TOCA Turbo Boost due to his eighth position in the championship, the red-headed West Countryman was a clear favourite for the race.
Reigning champion Tom Ingram put his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback on the front row, despite enjoying only three seconds per lap of TTB to the 20s of Cook, but the current series runner-up had the luck of the draw – he was in decidedly the weaker of the two qualifying groups, which he topped, but was slower than the top three in the other split.
By contrast, runaway points leader Ash Sutton was in the ‘group of death’ in his Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus Titanium, restricted to just 1s per lap of TTB. He set a lap time just 0.016s slower than Ingram’s, but would start seventh.
Cook got away in front, but the race was soon put under the safety car to retrieve the stranded Excelr8 Hyundai of Ricky Collard from the Complex.
At the restart, Cook gradually inched away from Ingram, and with six laps remaining had extended his leading margin to over a second. The man who had won no fewer than 10 BTCC races at Thruxton added an 11th (albeit half-points) to his haul, crossing the finish line 1.072s to the good.
Tom Ingram, Team VERTU
Photo by: JEP
“It’s what we needed,” said Cook. “I’m pleased with the amount of effort the team have put in, and I’m glad we’ve managed to get the start of a good result for them. It was a beauty to drive.
“Tom had a good go at the start – he gave me a bump and that got me going! I just had to manage the gap – the car was a bit lively and we had some moments.”
Sutton got past Mikey Doble off the startline, then leapfrogged ‘supersub’ Alliance Ford team-mate Senna Proctor plus Adam Morgan at the Complex to move into fourth.
Just over a lap after the restart, he pulled off a terrific dive on the sister Alliance Ford of Dan Cammish at Segrave to move into third.
Cammish and Proctor completed a 3-4-5 for the yellow-and-blue Focus saloons, while Gordon Shedden had his Laser Tools-liveried Speedworks Toyota on Proctor’s bumper to come home sixth.
The Plato Racing Mercedes A35 Saloon pair were next, with Morgan taking advantage of a grassy moment for Dan Rowbottom at Church on the 11th lap of 14 to take seventh.
With Tom Chilton dropping out of ninth on the penultimate lap with technical problems on his Excelr8 Hyundai, that moved up Doble (Power Maxed Racing Audi A3 Saloon) and James Dorlin (Restart Racing Hyundai) to the final positions in the top 10.
BTCC Thruxton – Qualifying race results
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– The Autosport.com Team
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