
Cook, Stilp share pole positions at Donington
Qualifying for the second round of the Courier Connections Renault UK Clio Cup season at Donington Park, delivered two new faces to the head of the grid with Josh Cook and Jordan Stilp (pictured) taking the pole positions.
Cook, driving for SV Racing with KX, topped the timesheets with a quickest lap of 1:17.358 to just see off team-mate and fellow KX Akademy racer Ant Whorton-Eales who was a career-best second fastest – only 0.072 seconds shy of Cook. Stilp, meanwhile, missed out on the Race 1 pole by a mere 0.092 seconds to claim third on the grid for round three but the 20Ten Racing driver’s second best lap of 1:17.495 earned him a well-deserved pole start for Race 2.
Behind the top three of Cook, Whorton-Eales and Stilp, Ash Hand will start the first of Sunday’s races from fourth place, while Team Pyro’s Mike Bushell will line-up fifth. Westbourne Motorsport’s James Colburn rounded out the lead six qualifiers, just ahead of championship leader Alex Morgan who has been fighting an uphill battle this weekend since encountering car problems during pre-event testing. Paul Rivett was eighth fastest for WDE Motorsport, securing the Masters Cup class pole position, ahead of Team Pyro’s Rob Smith. Lee Pattison completed the top 10 for JHR Developments within 0.5 seconds of the top of the grid.
For Race 2, Stilp will line-up on the outright and Graduate Cup class poles ahead of Bushell, Hand, Cook, Whorton-Eales and Morgan. Rivett and Pattison will share the fourth row of the grid ahead of Colburn and Smith.