Race three win 'important for championship' - Cook

BTC Racing's Josh Cook says his race three victory at Thruxton was an 'important' race for his British Touring Car Championship title hopes after moving back up to third in the standings.

Cook won the final race of the day at Thruxton ahead of the joint BTCC points leader Rory Butcher, keeping the Honda Civic Type-R driver within two points of the championship summit.

The 27-year old admitted he took a gamble on the set up of his BTC Racing Civic Type-R prior to the reverse grid finale.

"It was good," Cook told Crash.net. "We took a gamble on the set up and I’m chuffed to bits with the guys. We needed points today and to suddenly get that was important.

"Not only that, we had the fastest lap which shows we’re heading in the right direction with the car."

The title contender started the reverse grid from second position but quickly got the better of pole-sitter Ashley Sutton into Campbell corner on the opening lap before eventually maintaining a near one second gap ahead of Butcher and Sutton to record his second win of 2019.

"He [Sutton] had quite a good initial launch but so did I. The later phase of my start was quite good so it allowed me to stick with him through turn one. He had a little oversteer and I capitalised on it when around the outside.

"That’s what I had to do to get him quickly and not let him go off in the distance. Rory [Butcher] was quick so I had to get my foot down. I’m pleased with it."

Along with winning the final race, Cook feels his BTC Racing squad have made an important step with the long-term set up of their Honda Civic Type-R.

"We took a gamble on the set up. It wasn’t perfect but it was a lot better than what we had. I’m chuffed to bits. We need to refine it a little bit more but to pull that out of the bag was credit to the team," Cook explained.

"We needed to be in the ballpark. That’s the important bit. We didn’t score a lot of points in race one and two. We’ve taken all the ones we can get. That was race was important for the championship.

"I feel like not only was that an important step for the overalls points, but also for our set up in general so I’m pleased."