Josh Cook claimed another double in the latest BTCC action, following up his success at Brands Hatch earlier in the month.
It means the Honda Civic Type R racer is now the most successful BTCC driver ever at Thruxton and newly puts him atop the championship, with a 23-point lead.
Cook couldn’t manage the triple, though, as the final race of the weekend was won by Adam Morgan, the BMW driver earning victory in the same weekend as his 300th start in the BTCC.
Meanwhile, Ash Sutton grabbed three podiums to keep his title challenge quietly alive. The Ford Focus ST driver has yet to win after switching to a front-wheel drive car, but his consistency is paying off, as he lies second in the standings.
Cook delivers record-breaking victory
Pole man Cook didn’t get the cleanest of getaways but managed to find his way past the faster starting BMW 3 Series of Jake Hill at the first chicane and from there rarely looked troubled.
The action was more focused on the following pack, as Sutton survived 16 laps at the head of a gaggle of cars to finish third. Dan Rowbottom was the main challenger and briefly managed to get past, but when Sutton retook the spot, he dragged Colin Turkington through with him.
Sutton ended up third, followed by Turkington and Rowbottom, all of them covered by less than 1.5sec.
Cook’s ‘move of the season’
We may be only three weekends into the 2022 championship, but Cook’s move around the outside of Hill at Club (having again lost out at the start) was labelled the "move of the season so far" by ITV commentator and former BTCC champion Tim Harvey.
Afterwards, Cook explained how he planned the overtake: “I messed up the start quite badly, so I needed to try and recover from that. Jake got a really good first lap. Normally the rear-wheel-drive cars struggle a little bit through the high-speed stuff in the first part of the race, but he was just switched on straight away.
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