BTCC: Cook tops the timesheets at the end of the final day of testing

The final day of pre-season testing certainly gave us some talking points across both sessions throughout the day before the qualifying lap record was broken once more in pre-season.

The morning session started off with the times slowly getting brought down throughout the first hour and a half of running where drivers from every manufacturer took some time at the top spot before Tom Ingram sealed the top spot with three consecutive fastest laps. The 2022 BTCC Drivers Champion looked on form throughout the morning session with the Team Vertu Hyundai’s talking three of the top 4 fastest lap times with only Max Hall’s Cup putting himself amongst them.

While Ingram set the fastest time that session teammate Adam Morgan certainly was not far off as the former BMW Driver managed to keep within arms reach of Ingram being less than a tenth off of him. Hall once more impressing putting his car in third place on the timesheets having not left the top six across any of the official tests up until this point as he has shown over a single lap he can be consistently up at the top of the times in testing. He would be followed by the third of the Team Vertu drivers Tom Chilton who despite having completed the least number of laps in the session with only 18 laps, three times less than the Toyota of James Dorlin and the BMW of Daryl Deleon.

Dexter Patterson would round out the top 5 meaning the Un-Limited Motorsport squad would have two cars at the top end of the times and he would pip four-time champion Ash Sutton and teammate Daniel Rowbottom to that spot, both of whom put in an exceptional morning session themselves clocking in a combined 67 laps between them.

The early part of the session would remain very quiet as only Josh Cook would make an appearance out of the garage in the first half an hour. But the session would soon pick up as everyone would be putting in laps with Cammish, Rowbottom and Doble ending up at the top of timings within the first hour.

But heading into the latter part of the session it looked to be a repeat of the morning session as the Hyundai’s showing excellent pace with them claiming all the top 5 places across both Team Vertu and Restart Racing heading into the final hour before quicker lap times started to be set. By the end of the session, it would be Cook taking the fastest time beating the qualifying lap record at the circuit. He would set a time only 3 thousandths clear of Sutton as both would be aiming to topple each other for the top time.

Cammish would finish the final session third fastest ahead of Chris Smiley in the Restart Racing Hyundai as the two were only separated by a tenth and a half. Sam Osborne would round out the top 5 only a few hundredths behind Smiley topping the Team Vertu drivers of Ingram and Chilton. Shedden, on his return to the BTCC as he would be very much on pace in 8th with the sole Vauxhall of Doble and the NAPA Ford of Rowbottom would round out the top 10.

After the session, Josh Cook said: “The car feels good. We made a lot of changes during the course of the day and made some good progress. We just need to assess what worked and what didn’t work and make sure we come back next week somewhere in the right ballpark. We know it’s going to be extremely close, it always is, and hopefully we’re going to be in the mix at the front.”