Josh Cook hit out at Gordon Shedden after the pair’s collision in the third Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship race at Oulton Park, the latter given a verbal warning for his part.
Maximum Motorsport‘s Cook had enjoyed a strong weekend battling inside the top 10 in Cheshire, running a solid second place behind Andrew Jordan in the final race after results of sixth and eighth earlier in the afternoon.
Pressure soon came from the Halfords Yuasa Racing duo of Shedden and Matt Neal, contact under braking for Old Hall on lap four causing terminal damage to Cook’s Ford Focus ST which skated off the road at Cascades.
Cook described the move as ‘optimistic’ afterwards, having recognised Shedden was not yet alongside him heading into the braking zone of the first corner.
“When Gordon got onto the back of me I could see so many times that he was able to drive alongside me out of the corners”, Cook told The Checkered Flag.
“Now something I know and the beauty of being in touring cars; something you notice with a lot of the cars is that when you initially pick up the throttle, a lick of flame comes out of the side. When that starts happening early with cars around you that have a lot of weight on – that shouldn’t be happening.
“I knew where we were strong and I knew I needed to cover myself under braking. Before I know it, I had a Honda in my bootlid. I thought, ‘right….okay then’.
“I think he was optimistic. People might think I moved across on him too much but, as soon as I hit the brakes, he misjudged it and hit the back of my car as he tried to dart right. That was that.”
Shedden meanwhile went on to win the final race of the day, although the reigning champion picked up a verbal warning for his part in the collision. The Scot responded to TCF afterwards, later apologising to his rival.
“To be fair, for about three laps before that he was all over the place,” Shedden said imediately after the race. “Three or four times I’ve backed out of it to let him survive and not put him in the pit wall and in the end, I had no idea what he was going to do.
“I made a good move – a move that I’ve done before on Colin Turkington and various others into Turn 1 – and he’s obviously seen it late. Unfortunately, once you’re committed and you’ve made the move, you can’t vacate the space that you’re already in.
“You can tell that to break the rear toe-link shows it’s a side impact, with him coming back across, to do that damage on the car, which is unfortunate.”
The pair settled their parts in the incident the following morning, as seen via social media:
Sorry to @cooksport for damage in r3. A genuine but misjudged move on my part.. margins are so small and was prob out by 1ft. Hands up 🙌
— Gordon Shedden (@gordonshedden) May 22, 2017
Thanks for this & the phone call this morning @gordonshedden see you at Croft mate #BTCC https://t.co/29sCjgAnkV
— Josh Cook (@cooksport) May 22, 2017
Photo: BTCC Media
