Josh Cook heads Donington Park test
Josh Cook topped the times in the final official pre-season test for the British Touring Car Championship as the 2025 campaign was officially launched at Donington Park.
In total 23 of the 24 cars entered for the season hit the track for a day of testing at the circuit that will host the opening meeting of the year later this month, with the exception being the Hyundai of Michael Crees as he returned from a pre-planned family holiday.
Cook would emerge with the quickest time in a burst of quicker runs towards the end of the day, when times dipped below the qualifying record held by Ash Sutton – marking the quickest times ever seen at the circuit for a BTCC machine.
The One Motorsport driver set a best time of 1:07.438 to emerge at the head of the pack, edging out the Ford Focus of Ash Sutton by just 0.003s, with his NAPA Racing UK team-mate Dan Cammish behind in third.
“We made a lot of changes during the course of the day and made some good progress,” Cook said. “We just need to assess what worked and what didn’t work and make sure we come back next week somewhere in the right ballpark.
“We know it’s going to be extremely close, it always is, and hopefully we’re going to be in mix at the front.”
Chris Smiley’s Restart Racing Hyundai and Team VERTU car of Tom Ingram rounded out the top five, with the latter having been quickest in the morning running.
Ingram had also led the way for much of the afternoon before being shuffled down the order, and would end up just ahead of Sam Osborne and team-mate Tom Chilton.
Gordon Shedden, Adam Morgan and Mikey Doble then rounded out the top six.
A total of 18 drivers were within a second of the quickest time, with three of the BMWs – including defending champion Jake Hill – amongst those outside that mark as teams finalised their preparations for the opening weekend of action.
