The grassroots rise that shaped an understated BTCC star

Having started out in club-level competitions alongside his own university engineering studies, Josh Cook's journey to becoming an established frontrunner in the British Touring Car Championship is atypical. But it's these experiences that have moulded the 30-year-old into a humble star, respected throughout the paddock

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.

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Author Marcus Simmons

Marcus Simmons is the Deputy Editor of Autosport magazine. As a child he was a regular on the chalk banks of Thruxton – hence his unhealthy obsession with 1970s Formula 2 and F3 – before he became an MSA timekeeper at the age of 17. At 19, his reporting debut for Motoring News arguably overshadowed Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal as the sporting moment of June 1986, and he joined the staff in 1990 after graduating from his degree course in Plymouth. A parallel Formula First career – which was as incident-packed as his childhood exploits in show-jumping and hunter trials – finished when he wrote off his car and put himself in hospital in 1991.

Marcus moved to Autosport in the summer of 1996. Since then he has had two stints as a freelancer and a brief spell as editor of Motor Sport magazine, during which the revered green cover was revived, before he rejoined Autosport in 2008. He lives in Teddington with his wife (who, gratifyingly, grew up within earshot of Castle Combe), daughter, stepson, dog, cat and guitars, and additionally has an adult daughter and stepson.