Cook clinches race three win at Thruxton

BTC Racing's Josh Cook ends his day with victory during the reverse grid British Touring Car Championship race at Thruxton after fending off Rory Butcher and Ashley Sutton.

Cook started from second position, but quickly charged into the lead ahead of pole-sitter Sutton after scything past the Subaru Levorg at the opening complex on lap one.

The Honda Civic Type-R driver had to contend with two safety car periods in order to record his second win of the season and ultimately prevailed by 0.4s ahead of AmD Tuning's Butcher.

The safety car was needed as early as lap one when an altercation, which left the Vauxhall of Rob Collard facing the wrong way at Campbell corner, took Adam Morgan out of the race after his Mercedes clattered into the rear of Collard's stricken Astra.

A further safety car was needed on lap 10 when Carl Boardley's Volkswagen CC needed recovering from an incident at Church corner.

On both restarts, Cook appeared to be vulnerable on the final chicane, but the BTC Racing driver managed to pull away enough during the remainder of the lap, which was enough to preserve his lead ahead of Butcher.

A small error from Butcher during the late stages of the race allowed Cook vital breathing space at the head of the field, as the AmD Tuning fell back into the clutches of Sutton's Subaru Levorg.

Butcher, crucially, had enough straight-line speed to quell the attack of Sutton and kept his position on the second step of rostrum ahead of the 2017 champion.

Butcher now shares a joint championship lead on 102-points with reigning champion Colin Turkington, who finished race three in ninth.

Matt Neal finished as the top factory backed Honda in fourth, ahead of Team Toyota GB's Tom Ingram in fifth.

Dan Cammish was sixth for the Team Dynamics squad, while Tom Oliphant enjoyed his best result of the weekend as the top Team BMW driver in race three with seventh.

Despite being caught up in the opening lap melee at Campbell, Jason Plato recovered to finish a strong eighth and moves into the top-ten of the points standings for Power Maxed Racing.

After taking two podium finishes earlier in the day, Turkington settled for solid points in ninth, while Aiden Moffat rounded out the top-ten order in tenth.