Josh Cook heads into Sunday’s British Touring Car Championship action at Croft in confident mood after converting pole position into victory in Saturday’s qualifying race.

The Toyota driver continued an impressive record around the North Yorkshire circuit, where he has previously claimed three BTCC race victories, by topping qualifying and then leading the qualifying race from the front.

Cook felt his speed throughout the day had laid the foundations for success, although securing pole position was far from straightforward.

After having an earlier lap deleted and needing to adapt quickly to changing circumstances, the 35-year-old produced the crucial lap when it mattered most.

“We’ve got a decent car,” said Cook to TouringCars.Net. “We’ve been quick all day, which is nice. To be able to drag a lap out at the end of time in qualifying was pretty rewarding.”

After starting from pole, Cook completed the job in the qualifying race to secure the best possible starting position for Sunday.

“We managed to bring that home with a win in the race to pole. We’ve put ourselves in a good position for tomorrow.”

Despite his success on Saturday, Cook remains wary of the threat posed by the championship contenders, particularly the NAPA Racing UK runners.

“The Fords are very, very fast. Obviously, they’ve got a championship to bear in mind. We don’t currently, but I just want to score big.

“I need to try and get some big points and, if I can win the race, I’ll be doing everything that I can.”

Cook’s pole-winning qualifying effort came only after a challenging session in which track limits issues disrupted his planned strategy.

“The car was lively, so I had to work out in a short period how to hang on to it and how to get the best out of it,” he explained.

“Luckily I managed to, but sometimes qualifying sessions can go like that. It’s not always just a breeze and you’ve got to dig deep and try and produce something when it counts.”

Although Cook has slipped away from the title battle over recent rounds, he believes his championship position does not fully reflect the pace shown by his package this season.

According to Cook, a string of incidents outside the team’s control has repeatedly struck at the worst possible moment, often in the opening race of a weekend.

He pointed to punctures caused by debris and other misfortunes that compromised not only one race but the remainder of a meeting because of tyre strategy implications.

“It’s not been kind,” Cook admitted, before stressing that neither he nor the team had made major mistakes. “It’s just the way that racing goes sometimes.

“At Donington it looked like a screw had gone straight through the tyre. As a team and as a driver, you just brush yourself off and have to crack on.

“Although we had great pace at Donington, we had a DNF from second place with a drivetrain issue.

“To come back at the next round and put it on pole shows the team’s resilience.

“We’ve got good pace in the car and we just need to try and make sure that we finish the season with as many good results as we can and just push ourselves up on that championship table.”