The maiden Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship weekend for Josh Cook ended with the Renault UK Clio Cup vice champion picking up a pair of Jack Sears Trophy wins for Power Maxed Racing, telling TCF that the team have many positives to take from the visit to Brands Hatch.
Finishes of 13th and 14th overall in Sunday’s two opening races warranted the honour of top rookie in each, ending the day placed 18th in the overall Drivers’ Championship after the first of 10 meetings and 14 points behind Mike Bushell in the Jack Sears Trophy race.
Cook also got the better of his experienced team-mate Dave Newsham in both races, results which gave the newcomer plenty of heart heading to the next meeting at Donington Park on 18/19 April.
Speaking to The Checkered Flag afterwards, Cook said: “We’ve got a lot of positives to take away from this weekend.
“Even if race three didn’t go to plan, it’s great to get two of the three rookie wins, looking towards the Jack Sears Trophy.”
The final race of the day saw Cook retire early in the going under safety car conditions, the technical problem in question as yet unconfirmed. The Chevrolet driver said that his outing on softer tyres was therefore cut short, but he remains in high spirits for Donington.
“It’s a shame we didn’t get to have a crack on the soft tyres in the last one really. We worked out how we were going to look after that pretty well, but that’s racing and how it goes sometimes.
“We’re just looking at those positives and taking them to Donington and we’ll see where we are then.”
Beating former two-time race winner Newsham was a personal boost for the former Clio Cup runner-up on his maiden BTCC weekend, although Cook expects both to climb up the order with changes applied to the Cruze at Donington.
He added: “Dave’s obviously a pretty good peddler. It’s great to have a fast team-mate that I can work alongside, so fingers crossed that we can carry this momentum forward.
“On the media day my car was fast on the long runs, so we’re looking to test out a few of our changes at Donington.”
“We’ve been making changes all the way through the day. We’ve had a lot of running in the car now, so every time out has been a big learning curve.
“Strides are being made forward. Obviously the pace that Dave had in the last race was really good, so we’re looking forward to Donington.”
