The grassroots rise that shaped an understated BTCC star

There’s a Cook afoot in the British Touring Car Championship kitchen, rustling up a tasty title challenge for 2022. Amid the series’ big-name winter moves, as things stand we can likely (albeit unconfirmed) expect Josh Cook in a BTC Racing Honda Civic Type R for a fourth successive season. Yet somehow, the tall West Country redhead doesn’t register with tin-top followers in the same way as some of the top names. That will surely change.

Perhaps it already is changing. He’s a modest bloke, one who doesn’t blow his own trumpet, yet his charge to third in the 2021 points – where he tied Ash Sutton for most wins with five – indicates that Cook is a force. From his first BTCC race win in April 2018, he’s scored 13 victories, with only Sutton (17) and Colin Turkington (15) on more. Since his switch to the BTC Honda camp for 2019, he’s stood atop the podium 11 times; only Turkington (14) has a bigger tally, with Sutton level with Cook on 11.

Ask him if he’s averse to hogging the headlines, and he replies: “Being understated I don’t mind too much. I still take comfort in the fact that every team-mate I’ve had in touring cars I’ve beaten them in the championship – Tom Chilton, Ash Sutton. Which gives me that confidence that I don’t need to shout about myself.”

Add in his busy life away from the track, and it’s clear that Cook is multi-dimensional in ways that those who commit their whole lives to driving and racing can never be. He set up his Cooksport business – road car performance and tuning and race-car preparation – in 2009, when he was only 18. It’s now thriving.

“I’m aware that racing drivers have shelf lives, and I’m 30 now, and there’s going to be a point where I perhaps am not going to be in a position to be on my own, racing, doing my thing,” he continues. “There might come a time when I convert to pro-am racing, or GT racing, where I have to look after somebody else’s interests, which is fine.

“Come that point I want to make sure that I’ve got something that I’ve built up, that gives me support in life financially. That’s why I work very hard with other businesses that I’m involved in away from the racetrack, to make sure that come that time where I’m no longer able to be a professional race driver that I have a Plan B.

Cook has run his own road car performance tuning and race preparation business since he was 18, alongside driving

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

“I don’t want to be at that point where I’m going round desperate for that day’s work or that drive, selling your soul to desperately get something. And I think because I have that attitude, it allows me to be a little bit more relaxed in situations like looking for a touring car drive, that my life doesn’t depend on that sole racing seat in that one season. Because I find it difficult living season to season.”

Cook, therefore, perhaps doesn’t need to be a BTCC driver as much as some others, but you’d be making a massive misinterpretation to assume this means that he’s not committed to it. Top driver coach Danny Buxton, whose SV Racing team ran Cook to the runner-up spot in the 2014 Renault Clio Cup, points out: “To me he just stood out immediately in many ways – not just raw speed, but Jeez, I’ve never come across someone who wants it so much, and a lot of people don’t see that on the outside.”

"I’ve been very lucky with the opportunities I’ve had, but I’m certainly not from a background where I could just throw money at racing. Whilst I was racing in Stock Hatch I was running two other cars out of the garage at home to pay for my own racing" Josh Cook

Buxton has taken on an unpaid mentoring and coaching role with his protege ever since, and adds: “‘No stone unturned’ is our motto between us. He’s so hungry. You come across so many drivers, and 90% don’t want it enough to do enough off track. Being on track is the easy bit.”

When Cook was a kid standing by a hockey pitch, his dad certainly saw it…

“I used to play hockey for Bath as a junior, and I’d recently been to a go-karting party,” he relates. “I must have been about seven. I really enjoyed it and I wanted to do some more karting, and I was at the side of a pitch, and I stood there crying, refusing to go on until my dad agreed to take me go-karting again. He eventually agreed, probably out of embarrassment, just to get me to stop crying!”

Eventually the family acquired a machine to contest the club-level junior NKRA championship: “Back in the day there were huge grids, so it was a good place for me to learn. I couldn’t afford anything like Super 1.”

Aged 15, he went to the Citroen Saxo-based Saxmax series (now Junior Saloons) to cut his teeth in car racing, albeit via an overambitious wrong turn: “I actually went and did the Formula BMW scholarship at Valencia. I had no idea what it was really about, I sat in a room with a load of other people, and I was the only person there who hadn’t driven a car on-circuit before.” It didn’t float his boat either...

Cook's racing journey began in the club-level Saxmax series, now known as Junior Saloons

Photo by: Steve Jones

“That car was probably a bit much for me initially to jump into from a go-kart, but I didn’t really enjoy it, the concept of not touching other cars and not being able to trade paint,” Cook reflects. “As a young guy, watching touring cars and watching Formula 1, the whole concept of close racing and little nudges here and there was much more exciting to me than giving each other a wide berth.”

Cook finished third in the Saxmax standings in 2008, his second season, then remained Saxo-mounted for his move up the 750MC ladder to Stock Hatch in 2009. This is when Cooksport was born, and he claimed the 2010 title.

“I was in a position where whilst I’ve been very lucky with the opportunities I’ve had, I’m certainly not from a background where I could just throw money at racing,” he explains. “Whilst I was racing in Stock Hatch I was running two other cars out of the garage at home to pay for my own racing. And whilst that was going on, I was also doing a degree in motorsport engineering at Bath University. That’s where Cooksport started from and why I was running cars at the beginning. It was a fun time actually.”

Those skills helped in 2011. Cook had been given an opportunity in Clios by Westbourne Motorsport late in the 2010 season, and looked very promising, but the funds weren’t there. Instead, he went into the little-remembered Production Touring Car Trophy with a Renault Megane: “It seemed like a good option and it also gave me the opportunity to build the car myself. It gave me a huge step up with my own engineering ability and my own understanding of how cars worked and how to build them. It was hugely important for me.”

His early travails and acquisition of skills have left Cook with a passion for grassroots racing, and Cooksport now has a deal to supply spec parts for the Mk7 machine that is being introduced to the Fiesta Junior championship in 2022.

“I’ve come from club racing, I came from the Saxmax championship, that style of racing, where it was super-important that the budgets were kept low and it was kept as fair as it could be,” he says. “It’s trying to control the budgets so they don’t escalate – that’s super-important for the next generation of driver.

“I’ve not come from that wealthy background of top-level karting, top-level single-seaters. We’ve been doing work with the BRSCC for a while, and when this opportunity came up we sat down and had a discussion about it, and I was very passionate about having that kind of club level junior championship, which I feel is really missing at the moment. We wanted to put together a whole concept with the BRSCC that gives that platform for young drivers to start off in car racing in something that’s very well controlled and reasonably priced.”

Cook's path to reaching the BTCC has been far from straightforward on a limited budget

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Thanks to the faith of 20Ten Racing chief Simon Hunt (“I wouldn’t have got into it without him”), Cook finally made the full-time switch to Clios in 2012. The following season he went to JHR Developments, but it was in 2014 when his life changed: he was selected to join the Jason Plato-mentored KX Akademy. First, it brought him into Buxton’s orbit at SV: “Danny has been incredibly important for me over the past few years. He helps with my own personal development and with touring car deals and teams.”

Further, Cook met the unrelated Stephanie Cook, who was working for Plato’s Brand Pilot business, and they have been an item ever since: “She does all the running of Cooksport day to day, keeps me all together and in the right place at the right time.” And her dad just happens to be respected engineer Mick Cook, best known for his work with Madgwick Motorsport in 1980s Formula 3 and Super Nova in 1990s/2000s Formula 3000/GP2.

Josh persuaded Mick to look after his BTCC graduation in a Power Maxed Racing Chevrolet Cruze in 2015, and they’ve stayed together throughout – apart from 2019 and 2020, when they were jointly part of BTC but intra-team obligations meant Josh had ex-GT racer Steve Brady on laptop duties.

Counterintuitively for a front-wheel drive tin-top, the way he positions the car on entry to high-speed corners produces a beautiful, floating technique without scrubbing off speed – reminiscent of an old-school ‘proper’ F3 car being driven on the limit

“Having Mick with me has been great,” enthuses Cook. “He knows how much I know about the car – he knows how much to tell me, he knows how much not to tell me. Because he knows I’m very mechanically minded, that relationship is super-important.”

That’s been key to the progress made with BTC.

“Whilst the team is vast and it’s got a good image, we’re still a developing team,” Cook asserts. “It is absolutely not easy to rock up and be perfect every weekend, which is what you need. There can’t be a weekend where you’re not 100% on form. 2019 [when Cook was fourth in the points] was a bit of a whirlwind for us because there were times where we didn’t have the outright pace, but we played the touring car game, we struggled with the weight in race one, and I was on the podium by race three.

“2020 was a really bad year for us. We struggled a little bit. The option tyres, which were where we really thrived, were removed [amid COVID logistical measures]. We had a lot of bad luck, a lot of distraction within the team [BTC founder Bert Taylor’s disagreements with owner Steve Dudman led to Taylor’s departure].

Fruitful partnership with storied F3/F3000/GP2 engineer, the unrelated Mick Cook, has helped Cook become a top BTCC performer

Photo by: Jakob Ebrey Photography

“Whilst I had a great time with Steve Brady as my race engineer, and we did some incredible things together as a team, what I perhaps lacked a little bit was that finer-finesse relationship that I have with Mick. That’s not to say that Steve’s any worse an engineer – I worked well with Steve but I work especially well with Mick. Having that back has allowed me to relax a little bit more in 2021.”

It allowed Cook to show his exquisite skills. Counterintuitively for a front-wheel drive tin-top, the way he positions the car on entry to high-speed corners produces a beautiful, floating technique without scrubbing off speed – reminiscent of an old-school ‘proper’ F3 car being driven on the limit.

Put this to Buxton, who in his current role as head of customer racing at McLaren employs Cook as part of his coaching staff, plus ‘hot laps’ programmes at grand prix events, and he enthuses: “100%! I take him on some of the ice-driving programmes that McLaren do, and that helps a lot in terms of understanding car control. He’s always been good in fast stuff, and there’s no time lost in the car going sideways. It’s his reading of the car balance – he’s just a joy to watch. On commitment circuits the car dances.”

Ask Cook of the genesis of this, and he responds: “I think it was probably underpowered front-wheel-drive cars to be honest. Saxmax, Stock Hatch taught me a huge amount, looking back more than I realised at the time. I’m a huge fan of making sure the car is a little bit moving, you’re getting to where you’re not going to a point of having to give opposite lock to correct the car.

“I like to move the car on the pedals, and I like to balance it to make sure that I get to absolutely worst case a neutral steering, and set the car up with the geometry to allow it to do the rest, to make it so when you’re coming off the corner it’s still turning, but released – if that makes sense.”

It explains why he’s so mighty at Thruxton [seven of his BTCC wins have come here] and Brands GP [utterly dominant at the end of the 2021 season]: “I’m not fazed by going in too quickly or being overcommitted. Church [at Thruxton] for instance – I don’t brake at all, and a lot of other people do have a little brush of the brake to settle it down. I’ve just found what works for me, and OK, it might sometimes be a little bit terrifying, but I’m not fazed by going off or running wide, or going in 10k quicker if I can make it stick. I don’t know where that comes from – it’s probably stupidity!”

Cook is the complete package, and that’s been clear to three-time champion Sutton since his rookie BTCC season in 2016, when they lined up together in the Triple Eight MG squad.

“His knowledge on cars is fantastic, he’s great with set-ups, so I got quite a lot of information fed to me in that first year,” says Sutton of Cook, who was in his second BTCC campaign. “And I pretty much just acted as a sponge. We just bounced off each other so well. He’s a fantastic driver and we still go door to door now. He shows a lot of respect to drivers, he’s not one to take you out – that’s what I like about racing with Josh.”

Three-time champion Sutton (right) credits his rookie 2016 season alongside Cook at Triple Eight for improving his understanding

Photo by: Jakob Ebrey Photography

But while Sutton’s BTCC path has been smoothed by his manager Warren Scott, Cook has had no such luxury. His rookie BTCC PMR Chevy year in 2015 “was a very difficult year for us financially to make work, very difficult to break into the touring car paddock”. He ran out of funds mid-season in 2017 with the Maximum Motorsport Ford Focus, before Triple Eight put him back in the MG for the rest of the year: “At that point I’d almost accepted that I wasn’t going to be able to carry on and that might have been the end. To then get called straight into the MG was really the saviour of me.”

PMR gave him another chance in 2018, and Cook’s form in its Vauxhall Astra allowed him to show the promise that led to Dudman and BTC taking a punt on him the following year. And in 2021 came that breakout season. While Cook had the starter course nailed with two wins straight off the bat at the Thruxton opener, and the dessert was a treat with two victories at the Brands GP finale, some of the main courses were spoiled.

"It’s absolutely true that you win and lose as a team, and a couple of mistakes cost us perhaps the [2021] championship win. Ultimately we have to look back and look at all the things that we did really well, and look at what we can do better if we can continue together" Josh Cook

“We had that failure at Knockhill,” he muses of his first-lap retirement when the Honda coasted to a halt, which BTC described as a fuel system problem. Then there was Silverstone: excluded from second because a kerb strike led to a wishbone failure and the car failed the ride-height test.

“Nobody could foresee that,” states Cook. “There were a lot of cars that had wishbones fail in that race but they only check the top three. We had other ones broken within the team, and other ones broken up and down the pitlane in that same race.

“I’ve been put into BTC Racing by Steve Dudman and my career was saved – without him I probably wouldn’t be on the grid or in the position I’m in. He’s been incredible to me. It’s absolutely true that you win and lose as a team, and a couple of mistakes cost us perhaps the championship win. Ultimately we have to look back and look at all the things that we did really well, and look at what we can do better if we can continue together.”

And then, no doubt, there will be plenty of compliments to the Cook.

Cook's tally of five BTCC wins in 2021 was his best to date as he finished the year third in points

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images