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Collard slams "very dirty, dangerous" Cook

Rob Collard labelled Josh Cook "dangerous" after the pair's battle in the second race at Oulton Park on Sunday, on a day where a series of incidents stunted the West Surrey Racing man's undoubted speed.

Josh Cook, Triple Eight Racing

Josh Cook, Triple Eight Racing

PSP Images

Collard came into the weekend tied at the top of the standings with Team Dynamics' Matt Neal, but left 26 points down on the new leader, teammate Sam Tordoff.

This followed a tough qualifying for Collard on maximum ballast, which left the BMW 125i down in 16th, and incidents with Triple Eight Racing's Cook and Eurotech Racing's Jeff Smith.

The former came in race two when the pair were battling over sixth, which saw Collard pass Cook in a bold move along the pit wall before going off with a puncture.

Earlier, Eurotech Racing's Smith took Collard out at the hairpin in race one, a move which saw him hit with a reprimand and two penalty points.

"You've got to take a view on the whole weekend. We qualified 0.6 off pole with maximum ballast, which I thought was quite a good job. Then all hell broke loose," said Collard.

"I got knocked out of my rhythm by Jeff Smith, who just rammed into the back of me. It was absolutely outrageous what he did.

"That put me on the back foot and I was probably just a bit too fired up in race two. Josh Cook was very dirty in the way he put me up the pit wall, which was highly dangerous at 100-plus miles an hour.

"I must have picked up a puncture because we had so much debris on the tyres. When I came back on the track I was out of control.

"The only thing I can take out of this weekend is the pace we've had, and the positives of the overtakes I've done on people like Matt Neal and Colin Turkington, championship winners I've caught and overtaken.

"It's disappointing to say the least because I felt we could be leading the championship. We've lost 25 points this weekend, I feel."

Cook himself was critical of driving standards over the weekend, but felt the battle with Collard was fair.

"I love a bit of rubbing, a bit of shunting and a bit of hard racing, that’s why we’re here," he said.

"In race two I was battling with Collard, I made him go the long way, and fair play to him he held it and took the place, he made a mistake next corner, paid the price and I got the place back."

Cook unhappy with Ingram

Tom Ingram, Speedworks Motorsport
Tom Ingram, Speedworks Motorsport

Photo by: PSP Images

Cook looked set for a podium finish in the final race but for being bumped out of second by Gordon Shedden, after having been stuck behind a hard-defending Tom Ingram.

"It just got dangerous, didn't it?" Cook said. "I'm all for good hard racing and good defending, I did it myself in race two, but there comes a point when just defending turns into being really dangerous.

"We had good pace in the car, the guys did a great job to repair it after it got destroyed by a few guys in race two.

"Just a bit of a bumper car day, it's notoriously hard to overtake around here but a few people just resorted into driving into each other.

"I'm a bit gutted, especially to be punted off by Shedden and to be stuck behind Ingram.

"Any time I got anywhere near him, alongside, even completely alongside, on the straight, in a bend, inside or outside, as soon as I was there, it was, bang, contact, send me straight off, it was getting to the point where it might have been safer to just sit behind him or just push him wide and carry on."

"Tom's obviously quite new to touring car racing, he's quick but he's new to touring car racing, he needs to have a look back at that race and probably rethink his strategy.

"Shedden obviously thought there was a gap appearing and it never appeared and I got a bit of a shunt in the rear but I've had plenty of good races with Shedden and I'm sure it wasn't intentional. That's the way that it goes sometimes.

"We saved it, continued, that was nowhere near as dangerous as what Ingram was doing. I'm not going to hold a grudge, just got to try to take all the positives from the weekend, the guys gave me a great car."

The incidents were discussed by the stewards, including a post-race coming together between Ingram and Cook, but no further action was taken.

James Charman & Ian Gallagher / TouringCarTimes

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