Josh Cook “chuffed to bits” with maiden BTCC podium

Josh Cook declared himself “chuffed to bits” with a maiden BTCC podium for both himself and the Power Maxed Racing team, after a weekend where the new guard of touring cars took centre stage.

Cook had started race two from 14th after dropping down the order on the soft tyres in the first race, but he put in clean overtake after clean overtake to climb all the way to fourth with barely a mark on his car.

And the icing on the cake came on the last of the 16 laps, when he overtook Ciceley Racing’s Adam Morgan around the outside of the final Brook chicane to take the third step on the rostrum.

Cook’s success this weekend means he is provisionally the Jack Sears Trophy champion for best rookie in 2015, although this will not be formally confirmed until Brands Hatch.

Describing his pass on Morgan, Cook told TouringCarTimes: “I just had to tee him up a few corners before to unsettle him. He was struggling out of the hairpin for traction, and I just needed to make sure I got alongside him as the car was really good on the brakes.

“I just had to tip it in. I squeezed him a bit and he probably sensibly backed out, as there was no way I was going to! I’m chuffed to bits.

“From racing in Clios, any corner is an overtaking corner! It was good to come away with no damage, get stuck in to some proper racing and clean overtakes.”

Assessing his overall weekend, the reigning Clio Cup vice-champion added: “We’ve had really good race pace all weekend. The soft tyre we just went backwards, but that was always going to happen. But we did a little race run in FP2 and I knew the car was really strong.

“I just needed to keep out of trouble and picked them off one by one. Quite a few were on the soft tyre in front and I knew how badly that fell off.

“I think they weren’t expecting me to throw it down the inside so late. Some of them I was a couple of car lengths back, and I just threw it at the apex and hung on. The car just felt mega.”