BTCC CROFT: COOK FASTEST IN PRACTICE FROM INGRAM

Josh Cook topped free practice as the British Touring Car Championship resumed at Croft following its five-week summer break.

The red-headed West Countryman appeared to reap the dividend of mid-season development work carried out by the Speedworks Motorsport squad on his LKQ Toyota Corolla GR Sport, although was realistic that free practice is one thing, qualifying and racing quite another.

Cook dipped below the FP1-topping time set by Tom Ingram going into the final quarter of an hour of FP2, and then went 0.017 seconds quicker still on his following lap.

That put Cook 0.122s quicker than the Excelr8 Motorsport Hyundai i30 N Fastback of Ingram on combined times across the two sessions, and 0.212s better than Ingram’s team-mate Tom Chilton in the FP2 order.

Any further hope of quick times was promptly doused – literally – by a heavy rain shower that rendered the final 10 minutes of FP2 a washout, although some did venture out to get a read on wet-weather conditions.

“P1 is good, and the car felt a bit wild, but I knew there was something good in there,” Cook told Autosport.

“I knew that if we could nudge it in the direction we wanted, it would be comparable to the others, but with this weather the track is going to be green again as we head into qualifying.

“We did some development over the summer break, which was good because we really needed it. Everything seems to have been positive, but we won’t know for sure until we’ve done a few races.”

Tom Ingram, Bristol Street Motors Hyundai i30 N Fastback

Excelr8 looks strong this weekend, with Ingram’s FP1 best good for second overall, while he also set the third best time in FP2 behind Chilton to complete a 2-3 in that session for the Hyundais.

Second quickest in FP1, with a time good enough for fourth overall across the two sessions, was the West Surrey Racing BMW 330e M Sport of 14-time Croft BTCC race winner Colin Turkington.

Backing up Turkington in a strong showing for the Northern Irish contingent was Chris Smiley, who looked at his spectacular best in the lead Restart Racing Cupra Leon on his way to fourth in FP2, fifth overall.

That put him just ahead of Dan Rowbottom, who set the quickest time for the squadron of Alliance Racing-run NAPA Ford Focus STs.

Seventh across the two sessions was Rob Huff in his Speedworks-run Toyota Gazoo Racing GB Corolla, while four-time champion Ash Sutton was eighth in his NAPA Ford ahead of the WSR BMW of championship leader Jake Hill.

Rounding out the top 10 overall across the morning was Adam Morgan’s WSR BMW.

With the alternate positions from FP2 deciding the qualifying groups, it leaves the entire top three in the championship of Hill, Ingram and Sutton running together in the opening session for the first phase.

BTCC Croft - Practice results

FP2

FP1

2024-07-27T12:38:30Z dg43tfdfdgfd