Cook battles electrical gremlins for early points lead

Early British Touring Car Championship leader Josh Cook reveals he had to battle through electrical gremlins with his BTC Racing Honda Civic Type R during the season opening weekend at Brands Hatch.

Cook leads the early championship standings by four points ahead of Tom Chilton but it wasn’t all plain-sailing for the BTC Racing driver after intermittent electrical issues threatened to derail his weekend.

“It’s something that we had at the first test we had at Media day,” Cook told Crash.net. “That’s why I had to sit out FP2 at the end and half of qualifying because we were always opting to have more time to fix it.

“The guys have worked really hard overnight. I can’t fault the effort. Everyone is flat out. It’s just one of things until you know exactly what it is you can’t fix it.

“We’ll take the points that we’ve got and we’ll go from there.”

The 27-year old started the day from tenth on the grid but won the opening race in superb fashion after making the right strategy call to run in the slick in the changeable weather conditions.

Cook later consolidated his first win BTC Racing with seventh on maximum success ballast in race two before ending the day with a strong fourth place finish in race three.

“Obviously the race one tyre choice was the right one. I didn’t feel like it was a gamble, I just went with what I thought was the right tyre. Obviously that helped the points situation,” Cook continued.

“Race two was just damage limitation. I was happy with my performance there. Race three was tough with the issues I had so to finish fourth, I’m pleased with that.

“As soon as I pulled off the grid [in race one] I knew it was the right decision. I’m really surprised at everyone else’s decision but everyone had the choice like I did and I didn’t feel like it was a gamble.

“It was literally an assessment of the circuit and I know where the car strengths are. The car is good on cold slicks anyway.”

Despite finishing ahead of defending champion Colin Turkington to take fourth in race three, Cook said he almost missed the opportunity of taking part in the final race, such was the severity of his Honda’s electrical issue.

“We’re not where we need to be with the car yet. We’re struggling with some gremlins still. It was probably the worst in race three than I’ve had yet,” Cook explained.

“I’ll almost didn’t start race three. To start the race and then to finish where we did, I’m pleased with that. That was a hard race for me.

“I was lucky that Turkington kept pushing me lightly around the corners when the car turned off because he had nowhere to go! He would gently push me and the car would come back to life.”