After finishing second in the opening Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship race of the day at Donington Park, Josh Cook tells TCF he believes that Triple Eight have more time on the table for race two.
The MG driver started second on the grid behind team-mate Ashley Sutton, but could not prevent the Motorbase Ford Focus ST of Mat Jackson from squeezing between the pair and into the lead as the lights went out.
Cook ended 1.8s adrift of Jackson by the flag, saying to The Checkered Flag afterwards: “It was a hectic start, but it was kind of my own fault really.
“In fairness to Mat, he had a great start. I was closing the door to try and make it an MG lockout, but it was just a bit of a messy start for us both. The most important thing is that we brought the cars home though.”
Despite a competitive showing in the opening race, Cook admitted that the MG6 GT had room for improvement ahead of the second race of the day.
“We’ve got a bit of work to do to get it set up ready for the ballast, but the guys here know what they’re doing”, said Cook ahead of the second encounter. “We’re going to do everything we can to get onto that top step.
“We’re probably a few tenths shy still of where we need to be, but considering how the balance was, there’s a little bit more on the table for us to play with. We’ll get our heads down and find it now though.
“Fighting for that top step is what I want to do. Race two, we’ll see what we can do and then in race three, you never know what’s going to happen.”
Race two gets underway at 14:27, Cook carrying 66kg of success ballast in the second 17-lap encounter of day. Triple Eight worked hard on how to carry that ballast successfully during winter testing, something Cook hopes will pay off in round five of the season.
“We did have two good test days with full weight on the car”, Cook concluded. “We learned a bit about it, but now we’ll see just how good it was.”