Josh Cook and the Speedworks Toyota squad’s tyre gamble paid off with a crushing victory in the second British Touring Car Championship race at Oulton Park.
Cook started his Corolla GR Sport from eighth on the grid on the soft Goodyear rubber after getting his mandatory use of the hard compound out of the way in race one.
Aron Taylor-Smith was one place ahead of Cook on the grid, his Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra the best-placed of those on the softs, but the Irishman got into the West Surrey Racing BMW of Adam Morgan at the first corner, spinning the Lancastrian, delaying himself, and causing havoc among the pack behind.
Cook was now up to fifth, but within three corners he was second as opening race winner Tom Ingram found himself facing a repeated series of nudges from Ash Sutton at the Island hairpin.
Ingram controlled the squirming of his Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback, while Sutton, his momentum delayed, was flanked by the sister Alliance Racing Ford Focus ST of Dan Cammish and Jake Hill’s West Surrey Racing BMW 330e M Sport on the exit.
Cook, meanwhile, saw an opening and sailed past all three on the run to the chicane, and then took the lead from Ingram at Lodge Corner.
From then on the LKQ-liveried Toyota pulled away from Ingram, with fastest lap on the sixth tour extending the gap to over four seconds.
Red-headed West Countryman Cook took the chequered flag 8.016 seconds clear of Ingram, who has leapfrogged Sutton and Hill to move into the championship lead.
“The doors just sort of opened up for me,” said Cook. “That put me in a good position, and I got my head down and banged in some consistent laps.
“I knew I had a tyre advantage, but I had one mind on the safety car coming out so I didn’t want to use my tyres too much.”
Tom Ingram, Bristol Street Motors Hyundai i30 N Fastback
Photo by: JEP
Sutton continued his attacks on Ingram until a black-and-orange flag for a flapping right-rear wheelarch forced him into the pits, and he finished outside the points.
Cammish squeezed down the inside at Lodge via contact, in a bid to relieve Sutton of the offending bodywork, but it was in vain.
Cammish was now fending off Hill and the recovering Taylor-Smith for third.
As the advantage of the Astra’s soft tyres diminished, Taylor-Smith fell away, leaving Hill free to snatch third position away from Cammish on the final lap on the run from the Island hairpin to the chicane.
Taylor-Smith, indeed, found himself under pressure from PMR Vauxhall team-mate Mikey Doble, also on soft rubber, to take fifth.
Colin Turkington, from the back of the grid with his WSR BMW, was also on the soft tyres and rose to seventh.
The four-time champion just missed out in the reversed-grid draw, with Cook pulling out the number six ball to put Doble on pole and Taylor-Smith completing an all-PMR Vauxhall front row.
Turkington’s recovery featured a beautiful battle with Rob Huff in which the two veteran tin-top heroes fought cleanly side-by-side for half a lap, and ended with a switchback move on Chris Smiley’s Restart Racing Cupra Leon on the penultimate lap out of the hairpin.
Smiley took eighth from the Alliance Ford of Dan Rowbottom, while Daryl DeLeon put in a strong performance in his Unlimited Motorsport Cupra to beat Toyota pair Andrew Watson and Huff to the final position in the top 10.
21'52.594
+8.016
22'00.610
+9.879
22'02.473
+10.430
22'03.024
+10.856
22'03.450
+11.452
22'04.046
+12.197
22'04.791
+13.420
22'06.014
+14.705
22'07.299
+18.084
22'10.678
+18.972
22'11.566
+19.896
22'12.490
+27.111
22'19.705
+29.567
22'22.161
+33.011
22'25.605
+46.548
22'39.142
+58.564
22'51.158
+1'07.413
23'00.007
+8 Laps
10'30.758
+12 Laps
8'10.076
Source: Autosport