Pole-sitter Cook confident of 'stronger' race pace

Power Maxed TAG Racing's Josh Cook is confident his Vauxhall Astra should be even stronger in race trim after clinching a maiden British Touring Car Championship pole position at Donington Park.

Cook snatched pole position away from BTC Norlin Racing's Chris Smiley right at the death of the 30-minute shootout after successfully reproducing his promising practice form.

Despite featuring at the front for much of the business end of the session, Cook admitted he was almost caught out by the red flag late on after his tyre strategy fell marginally out of synchronisation with the rest of the field.

"It’s weird," Cook told Crash.net. "It doesn’t really feel like a maiden one because we’ve come close a couple of times. The pace has been there all weekend.

"I pitted quite late for my second set of tyres. When the red flag came out I hadn’t had a proper stab at it. I put a bit of a banker in on the first set. Even though it was raining, if anything it was helping so I wanted to wait that little bit longer before we put the second set on.

"The red flag just held us up. It took away our actual push laps. I knew I only had a couple of laps. I just had to find a bit of space. Senna [Proctor] and I backed up to the cars in front and luckily we got it right by the metre."

With the weather forecast so far to set to be drier for tomorrow's three races, Cook believes the dry track conditions should suit the Vauxhall Astra yet further.

Incidentally, Cook will avoid using the harder tyre in tomorrow's first race after electing to use option compound in the second race.

"It’s half a job. We still need to convert it. Pole means nothing if you can’t win the race. We’re looking forward to tomorrow," Cook continued.

"Starting from where we are now, we deserve to be there. The car has got the pace to be there. If anything our race pace is stronger than our qualifying pace.

"I like this place in the dry. If anything, I think we would have been stronger in the dry. We’ve got no weight in the car and we have the right tyre for race one. Let’s see what we can put together."