Despite saying he was ‘gutted’ to miss out on pole position for the British Touring Car Championship season opener by a small margin, Josh Cook was overall pleased with a front-row starting position for race one.
Cook has never previously qualified on the front row at his home circuit in his six years in the BTCC to-date, but the 29-year-old has claimed half of his eight BTCC race wins at the Hampshire circuit.
In tricky wet and drying conditions on Saturday, Cook narrowly missed out on pole position, as Ash Sutton edged the Honda racer by just 0.053 seconds.
“It’s nice, good fun, certainly in those conditions,” said Cook after qualifying. “I’m gutted to miss out on pole by half a tenth. It’s always got to be Ash, hasn’t it? Well done to him, he’s done a mega job.
“They were tricky conditions, but it was good and I’m happy with that. I know we’ve got a good race car around here, so just to make it through that session is good, but to come back with P2 is what the guys needed after a hard winter.”
Cook believes he could have clinched pole, but for the amount of time it took him to get his slick tyres up to temperature towards the end of the session, as track conditions improved.
“Yes [pole was possible]. I mean, we could all say that, couldn’t we? You had to be on the circuit at the right time.
“It took a bit longer than I expected to get some temperature in the tyres, but at the end of the day we can race from P2. It’s a long season, so we just need to get some decent points tomorrow.”
The BTC Racing driver admits that he has not given a huge amount of thought to race day conditions, when it is expected to be much drier around the high-speed circuit.
“I’m a big fan of this circuit going in quite blind and just hitting it on lap one not really knowing what you’ve got. I think it’s good fun and it’s one of the best circuits we come to.
“I don’t think it [the lack of dry running] is going to hinder us too much. It’s easy to say that now, but tomorrow morning I might be thinking a bit differently.”