Josh Cook admits: “We needed that performance”

Josh Cook admitted that a front row qualifying performance was “what the guys deserved” after the BTC Racing man went close to a first BTCC pole of the year at Oulton Park.

Cook made the trip to Cheshire looking to fight back from a tough weekend at Brands Hatch, where he failed to score in any of the three races to lose ground in the title race.

The cooler conditions in the North West saw the Honda drivers back on the pace and Cook topped the times in the dry second practice session to go into qualifying amongst the main contenders for pole.

Ultimately he would end up less than a tenth of a second behind the Ford of Rory Butcher but still secured his first front row start since Donington Park last year, leaving the former Jack Sears Trophy winner well placed for race day.

“I’m pleased as we needed a good qualifying session here,” he said. “We know the car is strong on Sunday, but the guys deserved this qualifying result. We’ve had some tough weekends and they were here until the early hours sorting some bits on my car that came quite late, so I wanted to get a decent result for them. I’m a bit gutted we didn’t get pole when it was so close, but we have to try and convert it tomorrow in race one.

“We need points as we don’t have them on the board at the moment, which isn’t fair for the effort the guys have put in and the pace we’ve had, as we showed at Donington with two fastest laps.

“We’ve not had the rub of the green but starting higher up will make it easier, although you can never say it’s easy in this series. Tomorrow, we have to bag as many points as we can.”