BTCC Weekend Superstar: Josh Cook

In a weekend where the trio of cars from Motorbase struggled to perform and Stephen Jelley didn't exactly set a stellar pace, Josh Cook and his Maximum Motorsport prepared car were left to uphold the honour of Ford. This, he achieved in style

In a tricky qualifying session with lots of position changes, Cook ran as high as third at several stages but in the dying moments of the session, he found himself demoted to nineteenth place. However, a lap time of just 1:10.194 meant that the the twenty five year old was less than eight tenths off of the pole position time. The lap time was also enough to see Cook qualify as the fastest Ford with Mat Jackson directly behind and Depper, Davenport and Jelley ending up in twenty eighth, twenty ninth and thirty second respectively. However, once the session had ended, both Ash Sutton and Jake Hill were disqualified due to technical infringements so Cook was promoted to seventeenth on the grid for race one.

A fantastic opening lap in race one saw Cook move up five places to twelfth, ahead of Andrew Jordan, Dan Lloyd, Tom Chilton, Jason Plato and Jack Goff, who had been punted off at McLeans. The following lap would see Cook gain another place as he made his way past the MG of Aron Taylor-Smith, but the Northern Irishman wasn't going down without a fight and set about trying to find a way back past the Focus. But the pack behind Cook soon began battling and he was able to pull away, opening up a gap of almost two seconds by lap five. Two laps later and Cook was right on the back of Rob Collard and Mike Epps, making his way past the Volkswagen CC of Epps on lap nine and disposing of Collard's BMW just one lap later. All this battling had allowed both the MGs to close up and a five car battle soon formed over eighth place with Jeff Smith quickly becoming a part of that battle. As the race reached its closing stages, the BMW of Collard was able to break away and contact with Andrew Jordan on lap eleven forced Epps out of contention. Heading into Redgate on lap thirteen, it was three wide between Cook and the two MGs and exiting Hollywood, it all went wrong. Lloyd and Taylor-Smith came together, spearing both cars off the road in spectacular fashion but Cook managed to avoid it all and a quiet final few laps saw him come home in tenth, the team's second best result up until that point.

Cook's Focus making its way through the chicane in race two

With most of his surrounding rivals on the option tyre for race two, Cook knew he was well positioned for a great result and he was determined to take advantage of that. Another good opening first lap saw Cook make his way past fellow independents Adam Morgan and Rob Austin who was very out of shape. Jeff Smith fell by the wayside on lap two with Turkington and a heavy Matt Neal both following suit on lap three and with that, Cook soon had his sights' set on the leading group; a half second gap to fourth place quickly decreased to four tenths, then one tenth and he was through, up in to fourth place ahead of race one winner Aiden Moffat. A flying Subaru belonging to Ash Sutton soon displaced Cook to fifth but a struggling Gordon Shedden was able to provide little challenge and Cook was back into fourth on lap ten. With multiple second gaps to the cars in front and behind of him, Cook was left to take what was comfortably the team's best result to date. He also ended up by far the best placed Ford Focus with Davenport Sixteenth, Depper and Jelley outside the top twenty and Mat Jackson failing to finish. One of the lowest budget teams on the grid was being able to fight comfortably at the sharp end.

The reverse grid draw would see Cook starting the third and final race of the day in fifth place, leaving him a good place to score another strong result but with forty eight kilos of success ballast in the car and some very treacherous conditions, it wasn't going to be easy. The first attempt to start the race saw complete and utter chaos as several cars spun out of control but Cook managed to survive it all and was able to restart with no damage. It was on that restart where the lack of experience that Cook and the team have with the car began to show as he began to drop back and was ninth by the end of lap ten. The day had seeming come full circle as Cook ended up battling over tenth place with Aron Taylor-Smith, just as he had done in race one and, even though the MG was the quicker car, Cook was able to hold the Northern Irishman off for four laps before eventually allowing the MG through. Even when that had happened, Cook didn't go down without a fight and fought back, making a stunning last-lap pass to make his way back up to eighth which soon became seventh after the exclusion of Gordon Shedden after he failed the ride height check.

Three top ten finishes, constantly outclassing the other Ford drivers and managing to fight right at the sharp end of the grid all whilst driving for a relatively low-budget and inexperienced team shows Cook's prowess as a touring car driver. He managed to avoid making the same mistakes that cost several other drivers dearly and raced cleanly and fairly but still hard all day. All of this adds up to Josh Cook deserving to be our second Weekend Superstar of the 2017 BTCC season.

Image: Maximum Motorsport (@MaximumMotorspor)

Words: Jordan Hines (@JordanHines33)

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