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BTCC Oulton Park: Cook uses tyre advantage to win race two

Josh Cook and the Speedworks Toyota squad’s tyre gamble paid off with a crushing victory in the second British Touring Car Championship race at Oulton Park.

Cook started his Corolla GR Sport from eighth on the grid on the soft Goodyear rubber after getting his mandatory use of the hard compound out of the way in race one.

Aron Taylor-Smith was one place ahead of Cook on the grid, his Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra the best-placed of those on the softs, but at the first corner the Irishman got into Tom Chilton’s Hyundai, which inadvertently hit Adam Morgan’s BMW into a spin, the incident causing havoc among the pack behind.

This gave Cook, who was on the outside line, a clear passage up to fifth, and within three corners he was second, as opening race winner Tom Ingram found himself facing a repeated series of nudges from Ash Sutton at the Island hairpin.

Ingram controlled the squirming of his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback, while Sutton, his momentum delayed, was flanked by the sister Alliance Racing Ford Focus ST of Dan Cammish and Jake Hill’s West Surrey Racing BMW 330e M Sport on the exit.

Cook, meanwhile, saw an opening and sailed past all three on the run to the chicane, and then took the lead from Ingram at Lodge Corner.

From then on the LKQ-liveried Toyota pulled away from Ingram, with fastest lap on the sixth tour extending the gap to over four seconds.

Red-headed West Countryman Cook took the chequered flag 8.016 seconds clear of Ingram, who has leapfrogged Sutton and Hill to move into the championship lead.

“The doors just sort of opened up for me,” said Cook. “That put me in a good position, and I got my head down and banged in some consistent laps.

“I knew I had a tyre advantage, but I had one mind on the safety car coming out so I didn’t want to use my tyres too much.”

Tom Ingram, Bristol Street Motors Hyundai i30 N Fastback (Photo by: JEP)

Sutton continued his attacks on Ingram until a black-and-orange flag for a flapping right-rear wheelarch forced him into the pits, and he finished outside the points.

Cammish squeezed down the inside at Lodge via contact, in a bid to relieve Sutton of the offending bodywork, but it was in vain.

Cammish was now fending off Hill and the recovering Taylor-Smith for third.

As the advantage of the Astra’s soft tyres diminished, Taylor-Smith fell away, leaving Hill free to snatch third position away from Cammish on the final lap on the run from the Island hairpin to the chicane.

Taylor-Smith, indeed, found himself under pressure from PMR Vauxhall team-mate Mikey Doble, also on soft rubber, to take fifth.

Colin Turkington, from the back of the grid after the clutch failed on his WSR BMW in race one, was also on the soft tyres and rose to seventh.

The four-time champion just missed out in the reversed-grid draw, with Cook pulling out the number six ball to put Doble on pole and Taylor-Smith completing an all-PMR Vauxhall front row.

Turkington’s recovery featured a beautiful battle with Rob Huff in which the two veteran tin-top heroes fought cleanly side-by-side for half a lap, and ended with a switchback move on Chris Smiley’s Restart Racing Cupra Leon on the penultimate lap out of the hairpin.

Smiley took eighth from the Alliance Ford of Dan Rowbottom, while Daryl DeLeon put in a strong performance in his Unlimited Motorsport Cupra to beat Toyota pair Andrew Watson and Huff to the final position in the top 10.

BTCC Oulton Park - race two result

   
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Cla Driver # Car Laps Time Interval km/h Retirement Points
1 United Kingdom J. Cook LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ   Toyota Corolla GR Sport 15

21'52.594

  91.57   20
2 United Kingdom T. Ingram Team Bristol Street Motors   Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance 15

+8.016

22'00.610

8.016 91.02   17
3 United Kingdom J. Hill Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport   BMW 330e M Sport 15

+9.879

22'02.473

1.863 90.89   15
4 United Kingdom D. Cammish NAPA Racing UK   Ford Focus ST 15

+10.430

22'03.024

0.551 90.85   13
5 Ireland A. Taylor-Smith Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing   Vauxhall Astra 15

+10.856

22'03.450

0.426 90.82   11
6
M. Doble Evans Halshaw Power Maxed Racing
  Vauxhall Astra 15

+11.452

22'04.046

0.596 90.78   10
7 United Kingdom C. Turkington Team BMW   BMW 330e M Sport 15

+12.197

22'04.791

0.745 90.73   9
8 United Kingdom C. Smiley Restart Racing   Cupra León 15

+13.420

22'06.014

1.223 90.65   8
9 United Kingdom D. Rowbottom NAPA Racing UK   Ford Focus ST 15

+14.705

22'07.299

1.285 90.56   7
10
D. De Duckhams Racing with Bartercard
  Cupra León 15

+18.084

22'10.678

3.379 90.33   6
11 United Kingdom A. Watson Toyota Gazoo Racing UK   Toyota Corolla GR Sport 15

+18.972

22'11.566

0.888 90.27   5
12 United Kingdom R. Huff Toyota Gazoo Racing UK   Toyota Corolla GR Sport 15

+19.896

22'12.490

0.924 90.21   4
13
R. Pearson Team Bristol Street Motors
  Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance 15

+27.111

22'19.705

7.215 89.72   3
14
S. Sumpton Restart Racing
  Cupra León 15

+29.567

22'22.161

2.456 89.56   2
15 United Kingdom S. Osborne NAPA Racing UK   Ford Focus ST 15

+33.011

22'25.605

3.444 89.33   1
16 United Kingdom A. Sutton NAPA Racing UK   Ford Focus ST 15

+46.548

22'39.142

13.537 88.44    
17 United Kingdom A. Morgan Team BMW   BMW 330e M Sport 15

+58.564

22'51.158

12.016 87.66    
18
N. Halstead Team Bristol Street Motors
  Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance 15

+1'07.413

23'00.007

8.849 87.10    
dnf United Kingdom T. Chilton Team Bristol Street Motors   Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance 7

+8 Laps

10'30.758

8 Laps 88.93 Retirement  
dnf United Kingdom A. Moffat LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ   Toyota Corolla GR Sport 3

+12 Laps

8'10.076

4 Laps 49.05 Retirement  
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