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

Main Information Additional Data Additional Data Driver Info

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Main Information Additional Data 1  -  2
Cla	Driver	#		Car	Laps	Time	Interval	km/h	Retirement	Points
1	J. Cook LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	15	21'52.594		91.57		20
2	T. Ingram Team Bristol Street Motors			Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	15	+8.016 22'00.610	8.016	91.02		17
3	J. Hill Laser Tools Racing with MB Motorsport			BMW 330e M Sport	15	+9.879 22'02.473	1.863	90.89		15
4	D. Cammish NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus ST	15	+10.430 22'03.024	0.551	90.85		13
5	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	C. Turkington Team BMW			BMW 330e M Sport	15	+12.197 22'04.791	0.745	90.73		9
8	C. Smiley Restart Racing			Cupra León	15	+13.420 22'06.014	1.223	90.65		8
9	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	A. Watson Toyota Gazoo Racing UK			Toyota Corolla GR Sport	15	+18.972 22'11.566	0.888	90.27		5
12	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	S. Osborne NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus ST	15	+33.011 22'25.605	3.444	89.33		1
16	A. Sutton NAPA Racing UK			Ford Focus ST	15	+46.548 22'39.142	13.537	88.44
17	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	T. Chilton Team Bristol Street Motors			Hyundai i30 Fastback N Performance	7	+8 Laps 10'30.758	8 Laps	88.93	Retirement
dnf	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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