LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ sets sights on Silverstone success
Josh Cook aiming to serve up a strong weekend at Silverstone
Aiden Moffat boasts stellar record at ‘Home of British Motor Racing’
Toyota Corolla GR Sport five times a former winner in Northants
LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ duo Josh Cook and Aiden Moffat are confident of a competitive showing in the penultimate outing of the 2024 British Touring Car Championship campaign at Silverstone this weekend (21-22 September).
The legendary ‘Home of British Motor Racing’ has been a happy hunting-ground indeed for the Speedworks Motorsport-prepared Toyota Corolla GR Sport in recent years, tallying an impressive five victories and three further podium finishes at the circuit since 2019.
Sixth in the Drivers’ standings amongst the 22 high-calibre contenders, Cook has twice taken the chequered flag just shy of the rostrum in the BTCC at Silverstone – and was stripped of the runner-up spoils at the track due to a technical infringement in 2016.
The 33-year-old Bath-born ace – two times an Independents’ champion in the UK’s premier motor racing series – was, however, a double winner there in the Renault UK Clio Cup back in 2012. He has similarly been in a fine vein of form of late, taking pole position last time out at Donington Park and notching up six top four finishes from nine starts since the summer break as he targets a late-season bid for glory.
In the sister British-built Corolla, team-mate Moffat could certainly be one to watch this weekend. Silverstone was where the 27-year-old Scot scored his first points in the BTCC in only his second appearance in the championship in 2013, and he went on to triumph there from pole position in 2018 – holding off hard-charging title protagonists Tom Ingram and Colin Turkington in a thrilling photo-finish. The Dalkeith native subsequently scythed from 29th on the grid to wind up second 12 months later.
Following Saturday afternoon’s qualifying session at 15:35 – streamed on ITV Sport’s YouTube channel – every moment of Sunday’s doorhandle-to-doorhandle action will be broadcast live and in high-definition on ITV4, beginning at 10:45. All three races will also be shown on the ITV Sport TikTok channel, in the UK and globally.
Christian Dick, Team Principal, LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ, said:
“We’re getting towards the business end of the season now with only two weekends left to run, and we’re looking forward to both of them immensely. We have high hopes for Silverstone given our previous success there with the Corolla, and the upgrades that we brought to the car over the summer break have helped us to feature routinely up at the sharp end in recent races.
“For Josh, this is a pivotal weekend in his quest to stay in the title fight ahead of Brands Hatch. There is no question that he is one of the BTCC’s most consistently strong performers, and to go into the final event still in the hunt in his first season with the team and in the Toyota would be a fantastic achievement – and no less than he deserves.
“For all of its simplicity on paper, Silverstone is notoriously one of the most difficult circuits on the calendar to get right – largely because the margins are so fine that there is little room for error. Aiden certainly knows how to get the best out of it – as his previous results go to show – and hopefully the breakthrough that we seem to have made with his car when we tested at Pembrey earlier this month will allow him to challenge for the podium again this weekend.”
Josh Cook, Driver, LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ, said:
“Coming off the back of some good performances and results at Knockhill and Donington, we’re feeling really positive going to Silverstone and looking forward to the weekend ahead. It’s a different style of track to where we’ve been recently, but historically, the Corolla has performed well there.
“The BTCC is constantly evolving, of course, and it will be interesting to see how we fare against everybody else. As always, it’s going to be ultra-close and qualifying will be hugely important so a strong Saturday will be key. The hybrid will also play a part and I obviously don’t have as much as most of the other drivers, but the aim is to ride the wave of momentum we’re on at the moment and keep our current success going.
“To win this championship, you’ve got to operate at a very high level consistently. We need another big points-paying weekend to stay in the running, but we’ve been edging closer to the front every time and we’re still making progress. If we can continue nudging things in the right direction, hopefully we will be in with a shout heading into the Brands Hatch finale.”
Aiden Moffat, Driver, LKQ Euro Car Parts with SYNETIQ, said:
“Silverstone has been a successful circuit for me in the past, and I’ve had a lot of good results there. We know the Corolla has a very capable chassis, and the car clearly suits the track well.
“We tested at Pembrey recently, and we think we got to the bottom of an underlying issue with the differential, which would explain a lot of the struggles we’ve been having. We also found a few things that worked well in terms of the set-up that we can hopefully carry over into this weekend.
“We’re doing everything we can to try to get back onto the podium. Our pace in the races is usually strong, but Saturdays have been a different story, and that has made our life more difficult than it should have been.
“You can overtake at Silverstone – I proved that in 2019 – but it’s always better to start up towards the front of the field, which is not something we’ve managed to do much this year. Twice we were coming through the pack at Donington Park last month when we got caught up in somebody else’s accident. That’s the risk of racing further down the order, so it really is vital that we get qualifying right – that has to be the primary focus this weekend.”