Clio ace Josh Cook in British Touring Car move with Help for Heroes

Cook, who will join 2014 Clio champion Mike Bushell on the BTCC grid next year, will drive for the Racing for Heroes team, which is yet to confirm which car it will run.

Racing for Heroes has been set up to run underfunded drivers in British motorsport while also raising money and awareness for the military charity.

"It's been my dream to race a touring car since an early age, and it's great to be able to do that while doing good for charity," said Cook.

"It's rare that you're able to give back so much to ex-service personnel in a manner like this."

The team will field 2013 Clio champion Josh Files in the Porsche Carrera Cup GB, Tom Butler in the Clio Cup, Zac Chapman in the Ginetta GT4 Supercup and Jessica Hawkins in MSA Formula.

Peter Thorpe, whose Stirling Motorsport operation is behind the launch of the project, told AUTOSPORT the aim was to redeploy injured service personnel into motorsport and ultimately have an entire BTCC team run by them.

"This is a beast of a marketing project," he said. "There is still a financial budget to be raised [but] there are dreams and there are people who can act on it.

"We're looking to redeploy war veterans into our race team at a lower level to develop their skills and ultimately create a racing team that's 100 per cent run and staffed by Help for Heroes veterans.

"We don't know the upper limit is going to be but I know it's higher that we're trying to achieve next year. I believe it will be a success."