Josh Cook takes record-equalling Thruxton win

Josh Cook secured his seventh victory at Thruxton with a comfortable win in the opening BTCC race of the weekend.

Dan Rowbottom had qualified on pole in his Honda and led the field away at the start, with Cook blasting ahead of Jake Hill’s Ford Focus off the line to move into second and Tom Oliphant also clearing the MB Motorsport man on the run up to the complex.

There, Cook and Oliphant both managed to get ahead of Rowbottom with Hill soon following suit, and Hill then managed to get ahead of Oliphant on the run up the chicane to reclaim second spot – with Cook out front in the Honda.

From that point on, the positions amongst the leading three would remain unchanged, with Cook setting the fastest lap as he scampered away from Hill behind and then controlled things from the front to secure a record-equalling seventh victory around the high-speed Hampshire circuit.

Hill would cross the line 1.3s behind in second spot, with a slightly larger gap back to Oliphant in third as he proved to be unable to catch the leading pair but had plenty of time in hand over the battle for fourth.

That place would be held early on by Rowbottom but he would come under ever-increasing pressure from Rory Butcher’s Toyota, which had managed to clear Adam Morgan’s BMW on the second lap.

Butcher tried to make a move for the position on lap five at the complex only for Rowbottom to defend the place, whilst behind, Morgan was being attacked for position by a charging Ash Sutton in the Infiniti – who finally got ahead at Goodwood on lao eight.

Rowbottom’s hold on fourth would last until lap nine when Butcher managed to get ahead at the complex, with Rowbottom then delayed enough to give Sutton the chance to nip past the Honda to move into fifth spot.

From there, Sutton tried to find a way to get ahead of Butcher but the Toyota had the legs to keep the Infiniti at bay, with Rowbottom dropping away from the pair to take sixth spot.

Morgan took a lonely seventh spot ahead of Senna Proctor, who fought his way ahead of the heavy Hyundai of Tom Ingram and then benefitted from Dan Lloyd being handed a penalty for being out of position at the start – which dropped him from eighth on the road down to eleventh spot.

The penalty also promoted Jason Plato and Ingram up a spot, with the pair having battled for position before Plato forced his way ahead at the chicane on the penultimate lap.

Ingram was forced across the grass as a result and that allowed Colin Turkington to get ahead only for Ingram to then fight back into the complex on the final lap to retake the position. Lloyd’s penalty would drop him in between the pair in the result, with Gordon Shedden, Tom Chilton and Stephen Jelley rounding out the scorers.