5 JOSH COOK

three very painful car failures – one the very last lap at Rockingham – where those 12 points to Turkington could have been banked. There really was nothing more we could have done,” says Ingram. “I can disappointed that I didn’t win the but I can’t be upset with anything did over the course of the campaign. gave it everything – but hey, we were up against Colin. To come second someone who is widely regarded as of the best tin-top racers in the world isn’t too shabby.” Tomchilton was the final man who went into the finale at Brands Hatch Grand Prix with an outside shot of title, and that was remarkable for man who had flown under the radar somewhat. The reworked Motorbase Performance Ford Focus RS was a step forward in that it offered consistency every round, rather than the peaks troughs of previous campaigns. former Independents Trophy winner’s ability to keep the tally ticking over amid the fluctuations in the frontrunners was strong, and he was only outside the points on three occasions – which, in the modern BTCC, is the bedrock of any attack.

His only win of the season was at Knockhill under pressure from Turkington but it was a highly creditable one.

His team-mate Sam Tordoff was 11th in the standings, but ended the season with the accolade of being the best qualifier. That was due, in part, to his rotten luck with reliability which meant he came to most events with no success ballast on his machine. A win at Silverstone was a relief, but it was a season of what might have been for the former championship runner-up.

Last season, six wins were enough for Sutton to claim his maiden championship trophy. He took the same number of victories in 2018 too but came up short – due, in no small part, to the engine woes the car suffered early on.

Indeed, three quarters of Sutton’s points were scored from Croft onwards.

The North Yorkshire track was an epiphany and it had rival teams up and down the pitlane scratching their collective heads. The BMR team had been granted slightly more boost for the Levorg, and that was combined with an alteration in the permitted ride-height of the car, allied to some aerodynamic upgrades.

The team had realised that the boost calculations were being done at a part of the engine that was not giving a proper reading and so that was altered.

That transformed Sutton’s car at least – although team-mate Plato continued his unfathomable struggles. His charge up the order to fourth in the standings was something to behold and rivals will be glad it took until just before the midpoint of the year for those upgrades to be forthcoming otherwise the championship result might have looked very different.

Plato’s season was another one where he was simply unable to match up to Sutton. He scored a podium at Croft when he followed Sutton across the line, but everywhere else, he was struggling with the handling and found the answers hard to come by. He admitted too that fighting in the rough-andtumble of the midfield made it hard for him to have the motivation to perform. He has already stated that he wants to remain in the category next season, and sources suggest he will be moving to a team which has a front-wheel-drive car. For him, that will be familiar territory and it will be a relief to see him back at the front of the pack.

The 2013 champion, Andrew Jordan, was full of optimism coming into the year. With a year’s experience of the Bmw125imsport behind him, a championship challenge was on his radar. However, if there was a dose of WSR finger trouble going around, it always seemed to land on his Pirtekbacked car. There were turbo problems at Donington Park and electrical woe at Silverstone knocked out four potential points-paying opportunities, while a gastro virus meant he was carted out of Thruxton in an ambulance before the end of the day.

The third WSRBMW125I was driven by Rob Collard initially, and he took a win at Oulton Park, but a crash at Snetterton led to a check by medics, who ruled him out as it had reignited problems Collard had suffered at Silverstone last year.

He handed over the car to son Ricky, whose podium finish at Silverstone was remarkable given his lack of experience in the car.

A maiden BTCC win for Josh Cook at Donington Park in the Power Maxed Racing Vauxhall Astra was a reward for the work the team had done on the chassis over the winter and the driver repeated the result at Thruxton. The softly-sprung machine revelled at front-wheel-drive friendly tracks and Cook – whose team-mate Senna Proctor was also a winner – was in the heart of the title fight up until a disastrous mid-season run through Oulton Park and Croft.

Proctor’s win had been in one of the most extraordinary races the BTCC has seen in the modern era, when a drying track presented the field with a dilemma on tyre choice. With nothing to lose from 27th on the grid, the Yorkshire racer plumped for slicks – which proved to be the magic bullet for him.

Adam Morgan’s Ciceley Motorsport Mercedes-benz A-class was a threetime winner but he was another to suffer two terrible rounds with damage at Croft and two crashes at Snetterton which took the wind from his sails.

A return to form at Rockingham brought him a third win of the year – and remarkably, his first pole in the BTCC after six years of trying.

His rookie team-mate Tomoliphant also showed some real potential and underlined the pace of the hatchback. The Laser Tools Racing Merc was a winner in Aiden Moffat’s hands too at Silverstone.

One of the races of the year was the opener at Snetterton, where Jack Goff’s Eurotech Racing Honda Civic Type R narrowly pipped Sutton. It was Goff’s second win of the year after claiming the opener, but too often he was all at sea with the set-up of the car and there were no solid answers. His team-mate Brett Smith was a polewinner at the final round of the season and took his maiden podium in the category with a controlled drive in that race, but now his dad’s team has been sold, his future is unclear. Matt Simpson was also a winner for Eurotech at Oulton, where he was unstoppable in terms of his pace – but stoppable when his engine went bang after the opener in Cheshire.

The factory Honda pairing of Neal and Cammish were both winners.

The new Civic was a tough machine to tame, but it has a longer wheelbase than the older version, which meant it was well planted at places like Thruxton. That was where Neal won his first race of the year, while Cammish was left to wait longer.

Cammish’s year was an interesting one. He was quick from the outset, but there were some speedbumps for him to deal with. He was kicked out of pole at the opening meeting of the year for missing the weighbridge and got in hot water with championship officials when he publicly criticised rivals after qualifying at Rockingham. It was just a mark of his desperation to land the big results and they finally came with backto-back wins at Brands Hatch in the finale – particularly as the second had been taken with full weight on the car.

With a year under its belt, the team has a greater understanding of the car and 2019 will be a serious threat.

The older-spec car was not only quick in Eurotech’s hands. Both Dan Lloyd and Chris Smiley were winners for BTC Norlin, and the team took some serious strides forward in terms of competitiveness. A new car could beckon for next year which will represent another step forward for Bert Taylor’s team.

TEAM: POWER MAXED RACING CAR: VAUXHALL ASTRA QUALIFYING AVERAGE: 12.91 POLES: 1 WINS: 2 FASTEST LAP: 4 PODIUMS: 6 CHAMPIONSHIP POSITION: 6TH

When Josh Cook crossed the line ahead at Donington Park in April, it seemed unremarkable – except it was. The Bath racer has increasingly become a major player in the category since his debut in 2015 and it was hard to fathom that he had yet to have a win. That breakthrough led to another win at Thruxton and he was a real championship threat. A disastrous weekend at Oulton with mechanical trouble and a shunt was followed by another at Croft, where his brakes failed in race one, knocking the stuffing out of his title aspirations.