Cook snatches pole from Smiley at Donington Park

Power Maxed TAG Racing's Josh Cook has secured his first ever British Touring Car Championship pole position in dramatic fashion after a frantic climax to a wet qualifying at Donington Park.

The Vauxhall Astra driver looked destined to start tomorrow's opening race from third on the grid, but produced a mighty effort during his final effort to snatch pole position away from BTC Norlin Racing's Chris Smiley by just 0.031s.

Cook's maiden BTCC pole also marks Vauxhall's first pole position since Brands Hatch 2012.

The Power Maxed driver took full advantage of a late red flag after the Mercedes A-Class of Aiden Moffat went off at the final corner with just five minutes to go.

At that point, Motorbase Performance's Sam Tordoff looked set to clinch his first BTCC pole since Croft 2015, which would have also been a first Ford RS badged pole position since Silverstone 1990.

However, Cook managed to successfully replicate his FP2 form by setting a 1 minute 19.816 in the damp conditions.

Tordoff was forced to settle for third, while Halfords Yuasa Racing's Dan Cammish qualified his Honda Civic Type-R in fourth for the second race in a row.

Despite his late off, Moffat held on to qualify in fifth, as WIX Racing's Jack Goff joins the Mercedes runner on the third in sixth.

BTC Norlin Racing's James Nash set an identical time to the sixth placed Goff, but did so after the Eurotech driver, leaving the BTCC returnee in seventh ahead of Tom Chilton.

Brett Smith and Tom Oliphant completed the remainder of the top-ten in ninth and tenth.