Josh Cook storms to race one win at Oulton Park
Josh Cook recovered from a tardy start to secure a fine victory in the opening BTCC race of the weekend at Oulton Park, but questions remain over whether the BTC Racing man will hold on to the win.
The arrival of rain as the cars made their way to the grid for the start would lead to a dramatic opening race after the whole field was forced to switch to wet tyres before the start, which had to be delayed by 20 minutes after a sticking throttle saw Carl Boardley’s BMW go off into the barriers at Lodge on the green flag lap.
When the race did finally begin it was pole sitter Rory Butcher who held the lead into turn one ahead of a fast-starting Colin Turkington, with Tom Oliphant in the second WSR-run BMW vaulting up into third as Cook bogged down and slipped back to fourth.
Cook wasted little time in starting to fight back however, clearing Oliphant at Lodge with a fine move on lap two and then getting ahead of Turkington at Druids a lap later.
Butcher by this point had built a slender lead out front but the deployment of the safety car after Ollie Brown slid off at turn one meant his lead was eradicated and meant Cook was on his tail when the race resumed after a single lap under caution.
Heading into lap seven, Cook made his move at Old Hall only for Butcher to try and switch back as the pair headed down the Avenue. Cook had the inside lane for Cascades however and managed to make the move stick to move into the lead.
From there on, the Honda was able to edge away from Butcher behind as Cook secured his first win of the year, although the car then appeared to fail the ride height test in parc ferme afterwards – with Cook reporting damage and admitting that it was ‘with the powers that be’.
Butcher would be left untroubled in second spot but there was more of a fight over third as Turkington struggled for pace in his ballast-heavy BMW.
Having dropped behind Cook, Turkington then lost out to Dan Cammish after the restart and was powerless to stop Jake Hill from getting ahead on lap eight to drop him back to fifth.
Hill would out Cammish under pressure throughout the closing laps but couldn’t get close enough to make a move stick as Cammish took the final place on the podium, with Hill less than a second behind.
Turkington took fifth having been given breathing space by a heated battle behind between Tom Chilton, Adam Morgan, a charging Tom Ingram and Ash Sutton.
Chilton would eventually prevail to secure the place with Ingram behind after an impressive drive through from 14th in the Speedworks Toyota.
Morgan and Sutton followed behind, with Chris Smiley rounding out the top ten.
Elsewhere, Matt Neal’s 699th start ended in disappointing fashion when an electrical issue forced him to pit and meant he would be not classified three laps down.
