Josh Cook not reading anything into practice pace

Triple Eight Racing’s Josh Cook headed a truncated first practice session at Donington Park, but the MG driver said he wouldn’t be reading anything into his promising early pace.

Cook’s best lap of 1.10.985 in his MG6 GT was around 1.5 seconds slower than the qualifying lap record set by Jason Plato in the same car two years ago, albeit in much colder conditions.

“There’s a couple of things we need to work on balance-wise and other things we need to get our heads around. Everyone’s going to go a hell of a lot faster this afternoon so I’m not reading anything into it,” said Cook to TouringCarTimes.

“I’m happy with the car out of the box but there’s still a lot of work to do. I’m comfortable in the car and I love the track, but it doesn’t mean anything.”

Air and track temperatures were both very cold for the time of year, something Cook said makes a big difference to the laptime.

“It’s a huge impact – it all comes down to tyres and the temperature you can get into them,” he said. “It’s great to be at the top of the timesheets but it doesn’t mean anything at all. I’ve got to knuckle down.”