Josh Cook fastest in curtailed first Thruxton practice

BTC Racing’s Josh Cook topped the times in the opening British Touring Car Championship practice session at Thruxton, as the session was ended early when Team BMW’s Stephen Jelley crashed.

Cook, a double winner at the Hampshire circuit at the start of the season, hit the top of the timesheets around 19 minutes into the session, initially with a time of 1 minute 15.737 seconds before he then knocked that down to a 1:15.655 on the following lap.

That was enough to comfortably deny championship leader Ash Sutton the top time, with the fully-ballasted Infiniti driver second quickest, just over two tenths of a second adrift.

Senna Proctor put his BTC Racing Honda in third, three tenths adrift, ahead of the leading BMW of Ciceley Motorsport’s Adam Morgan in fourth.

Tom Ingram was fifth in his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai, ahead of Team Dynamics’ Gordon Shedden in sixth.

Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Rory Butcher was seventh, just under half a second off the pace, ahead of the second Team Dynamics Honda of Daniel Rowbottom in eighth.

The top ten was completed by Northern Irish duo Chris Smiley’s Hyundai and Colin Turkington’s BMW.

It was not a good session for Turkington’s Team BMW team-mate Jelley, who crashed his car on the exit of Allard corner, bringing out the red flags.

“Unfortunately, I just turned into turn one too late,” said Jelley. “I did my best first sector on the lap before and was just looking to try and improve.

“We had a little bit of understeer through there and I turned in, got on the marbles slightly and you’re just line-locked on whatever your destiny is at that time.”

MB Motorsport title contender Jake Hill was just outside the top ten in 11^th, the best of the Ford Focus drivers.

Second practice is scheduled to get underway at 12:05 BST.

Session results

POS	NO	NAT	DRIVER	ENTRANT	CAR	LAPS	TIME	GAP
1	66		Josh COOK	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	11	1:15.655	–
2	1		Ashley SUTTON	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	11	1:15.897	0.242
3	18		Senna PROCTOR	BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	11	1:15.979	0.324
4	33		Adam MORGAN	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	12	1:16.014	0.359
5	80		Tom INGRAM	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	11	1:16.055	0.400
6	52		Gordon SHEDDEN	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	10	1:16.126	0.471
7	6		Rory BUTCHER	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	14	1:16.138	0.483
8	32		Daniel ROWBOTTOM	Halfords Racing with Cataclean	Honda Civic Type-R	10	1:16.156	0.501
9	22		Chris SMILEY	Ginsters EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	11	1:16.182	0.527
10	2		Colin TURKINGTON	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	12	1:16.235	0.580
11	24		Jake HILL	MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Ford Focus ST	11	1:16.259	0.604
12	3		Tom CHILTON	Car Gods with Ciceley Motorsport	BMW 330i M Sport	10	1:16.333	0.678
13	11		Jason PLATO	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	12	1:16.448	0.793
14	12		Stephen JELLEY	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	10	1:16.625	0.970
15	15		Tom OLIPHANT	Team BMW	BMW 330i M Sport	14	1:16.694	1.039
16	48		Ollie JACKSON	MB Motorsport accelerated by Blue Square	Ford Focus ST	11	1:17.020	1.365
17	41		Carl BOARDLEY	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	11	1:17.164	1.509
18	31		Jack GOFF	Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct	CUPRA Leon	15	1:17.221	1.566
19	123		Daniel LLOYD	Adrian Flux with Power Maxed Racing	Vauxhall Astra	12	1:17.301	1.646
20	40		Árón TAYLOR-SMITH	Team HARD. with HUB Financial Solutions	CUPRA Leon	13	1:17.392	1.737
21	20		Paul RIVETT	Racing with Wera & Photon Group	Ford Focus ST	14	1:17.396	1.741
22	19		Jack MITCHELL	Team HARD. with Autobrite Direct	CUPRA Leon	13	1:17.524	1.869
23	23		Sam SMELT	Toyota Gazoo Racing UK	Toyota Corolla GR Sport	15	1:17.564	1.909
24	96		Jack BUTEL	EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	12	1:17.711	2.056
25	4		Sam OSBORNE	Racing with Wera & Photon Group	Ford Focus ST	12	1:17.893	2.238
26	16		Aiden MOFFAT	Laser Tools Racing	Infiniti Q50	11	1:18.081	2.426
27	62		Rick PARFITT Jr	EXCELR8 with TradePriceCars.com	Hyundai i30 Fastback N	10	1:18.118	2.463
28	99		Jade EDWARDS	PHSC with BTC Racing	Honda Civic Type-R	12	1:18.289	2.634
29	28		Nicolas HAMILTON	ROKiT Racing with iQuoto Online Trading	CUPRA Leon	14	1:18.325	2.670