Cook strikes again at Thruxton to claim pole ahead of Hill

Rich Energy BTC Racing's Josh Cook has claimed pole position for Sunday's first race after narrowly beating ROKiT MB Motorsport BMW's Jake Hill in British Touring Car Championship qualifying at Thruxton.

Having already taken seven victories around the Hampshire circuit, the Thruxton maestro struck again after producing a sensational lap during the latter stages of the 30-minute shootout to beat West Surrey Racing Hill's by just 0.077s.

Cook hit the front right at the start of the session, but saw that time taken away from him after it was deleted for exceeding track limits.

From that moment, it was defending champion Ash Sutton and Jake Hill who took charge of proceedings with the pair leading the way after the halfway point.

However, despite leaving it late on, Cook wasn't to be denied and the Honda Civic Type R driver produced a scorching 1'15.310s lap to snatch the top-spot away from Hill with just four-minutes left on the clock.

Up until the final minutes of the session, Sutton looked set to start race one from third on the grid, but the defending champion was usurped by both his NAPA Racing Ford team mate Dan Cammish and Team BMW's Colin Turkington.

From nowhere, Turkington produced a sensational lap to leap up the order from 15th to third with just two-minutes to go, before Cammish bettered that just a minute later to wrestle P3 away from the four-time champion.

Sutton eventually settled for fifth ahead of Team Dynamics Honda's Dan Rowbottom in sixth.

Two-time champion Jason Plato enjoyed his strongest qualifying for quite some time after posting the seventh fastest lap. Plato set his best lap early in the session and held P3 for much of the running.

But the 97-time race winner remained in the pits for the final part of qualifying. Nevertheless, Plato shares the fourth row with championship leader Tom Ingram in eighth.

Gordon Shedden and Stephen Jelley completed the top-ten in ninth and tenth.