Josh Cook doubles up with second practice honours

Josh Cook has ended the second free practice session of this weekend’s Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship meeting at Donington Park fastest, clocking a best lap time of 1:10.129 around the National configuration of the circuit ahead of Sam Tordoff and Tom Ingram.

Behind them, the top ten was completed in ascending order by Aiden Moffat after a surprisingly strong showing in the Mercedes A-Class, then Shedden, Mat Jackson, Sutton, Jeff Smith, Aron Smith and Rob Collard.

The early stages of the forty minute session saw Jason Plato and Rob Collard trade places at the summit of the timesheets, before the usual suspects entered the fray. Tom Ingram set the fastest lap time of the day thus far as he clocked a 1:10.129 to go fastest ahead of Josh Cook, who was fastest in the morning session.

There were also improvements for Gordon Shedden, Aron Smith and Mat Jackson, before Alex Martin brought out a red flag for losing control of his Ford Focus ST at the Old Hairpin, beaching it in the gravel trap before later making his way back to the pit lane under the cars own power.

Green flags flew with twenty minutes remaining and the vast majority of the field headed back out on circuit in a bid to improve their times, but the restarted session lasted barely five minutes before Warren Scott spun his Team BMR Subaru Levorg and caused another stoppage to the session, though in that time Mat Jackson was able to elevate his Motorbase Ford into third with a time of 1:10.762, 0.385 seconds off the pace.

Though Aron Smith, Jack Goff and later Gordon Shedden all improved their times in the final stages of the session, the man on the move was Josh Cook, who improved to a 1:10.370, just seven thousandths of a second quicker than Ingram, before going even faster still on his next flying lap. Jeff Smith also recovered from his earlier moment to throw himself into the top six order with a 1:10.611. Sam Tordoff was the last of the front-runners to improve his time, going 2^nd with a time just 0.198 seconds slower than Cook.

So it was Josh Cook who doubled up his honours at Donington Park, but it remains to be seen if the bragging rights will translate into pole position when qualifying gets underway at 15:35 this afternoon.

Session results

POS	NO	CL	DRIVER	NAT	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	66	M	Josh COOK		MG Racing RCIB Insurance	MG6GT	19	1:10.129	0.000
2	600	C	Sam TORDOFF		Team JCT600 with GardX	BMW 125i M Sport	16	1:10.327	0.198
3	80		Tom INGRAM		Speedworks Motorsport	Toyota Avensis	19	1:10.377	0.248
4	16		Aiden MOFFAT		Laser Tools Racing	Mercedes-Benz A-Class	18	1:10.455	0.326
5	52	M	Gordon SHEDDEN		Halfords Yuasa Racing	Honda Civic Type R	16	1:10.485	0.356
6	7		Mat JACKSON		Motorbase Performance	Ford Focus	19	1:10.511	0.382
7	116	M	Ashley SUTTON		MG Racing RCIB Insurance	MG6GT	17	1:10.557	0.428
8	55		Jeff SMITH		Eurotech Racing	Honda Civic Type R	17	1:10.611	0.482
9	40		Árón SMITH		BKR	Volkswagen CC	15	1:10.638	0.509
10	100	C	Rob COLLARD		Team JCT600 with GardX	BMW 125i M Sport	19	1:10.643	0.514
11	31	C	Jack GOFF		Team IHG Rewards Club	BMW 125i M Sport	18	1:10.701	0.572
12	33		Adam MORGAN		WIX Racing	Mercedes-Benz A-Class	13	1:10.762	0.633
13	77		Andrew JORDAN		Motorbase Performance	Ford Focus	18	1:10.805	0.676
14	24		Jake HILL		RCIB Insurance Racing	Toyota Avensis	15	1:10.825	0.696
15	11		Rob AUSTIN		Handy Motorsport	Toyota Avensis	17	1:10.984	0.855
16	53		Hunter ABBOTT		Power Maxed Racing	Chevrolet Cruze	17	1:11.033	0.904
17	25	M	Matt NEAL		Halfords Yuasa Racing	Honda Civic Type R	16	1:11.191	1.062
18	30		Martin DEPPER		Eurotech Racing	Honda Civic Type R	14	1:11.295	1.166
19	4	M	Colin TURKINGTON		Subaru Team BMR	Subaru Levorg GT	16	1:11.298	1.169
20	22		Chris SMILEY		TLC Racing	Toyota Avensis	11	1:11.565	1.436
21	99	M	Jason PLATO		Subaru Team BMR	Subaru Levorg GT	12	1:11.671	1.542
22	12		Mike EPPS		RCIB Insurance Racing	Toyota Avensis	14	1:11.673	1.544
23	20	M	James COLE		Subaru Team BMR	Subaru Levorg GT	21	1:11.769	1.640
24	303		Matt SIMPSON		Speedworks Motorsport	Honda Civic Type R	17	1:11.790	1.661
25	48		Ollie JACKSON		AmD Tuning	Audi S3	16	1:11.890	1.761
26	17		Dan WELCH		Goodestone Racing	Proton Persona	14	1:11.915	1.786
27	14		Alex MARTIN		Dextra Racing with Team Parker	Ford Focus	7	1:12.325	2.196
28	38		Mark HOWARD		BKR	Volkswagen CC	14	1:13.035	2.906
29	39	M	Warren SCOTT		Subaru Team BMR	Subaru Levorg GT	9	1:13.201	3.072
30	95		Stewart LINES		Maximum Motorsport	Ford Focus	16	1:13.754	3.625
31	84		Kelvin FLETCHER		Power Maxed Racing	Chevrolet Cruze	11	1:18.747	8.618

Complete session results.