Podium success “new territory” for BSB bimota rider Max Cook at Donington

Max Cook had his best weekend to date in the BSB class with a third visit to the podium in the final race at Donington Park.

Adding to his second in the wet, early declared race in Saturday the bimota rider picked up a pair of third places over the sprint and final feature race.

Though Cook was more out of touch the third time around Donington, his three trophy finishes at one meeting more than doubled his previous best of two since joining BSB, with both coming at Thruxton.

Cook, speaking to British Superbikes after the race in their podium reactions segment first reflected on the move into “new territory” with his newfound success with the new bimota team:

“I think I just had to ride quite smooth in that race, but you know, I’m just so happy to finish up third. It’s a really good result. Obviously, this is new territory for me now. To come away here with the treble podium, I really didn’t expect that coming into this weekend, and you know to be able to do that and for it only to be round two of the bimota and BSB, you know that’s a huge achievement - I believe it’s only going to get better as well.

The number 30 credited the track time at Donington as a big help towards his string of rostrum results, adding:

“We’ve had so much track time now this weekend, we can really learn and compare and the guys at AJN Steelstock bimota are going to analyse all this and when we return here in September I think its just going to be even better

So yeah I’m super happy with how It’s gone this weekend, I feel like it’s a night and day change from how Oulton was, because I was so desperate at Oulton - I had a good bike underneath me, but I was just trying too hard and I became desperate, whereas today and yesterday I chilled out a little bit

I took a step back and, you know, although I wasn’t dicey as such, but it ended up with being a much better result.”

Cook was then asked how he had altered his mindset from the first meeting at Oulton Park, where he was pushing to hard for a result, leading to a drop back into the pack in all three races after a strong start, crediting one of the interviews given by Kyle Ryde as his motivation:

“It’s difficult to get it into your head. I know I listened to Kyle’s interview at Oulton where, you know, he had not the best of starts, but you got into third and you’re like, ‘okay, relax now do what you’ve done all weekend’ - and that’s been a huge part, in my head, to remind myself that Kyle’s doing the same thing as you , relaxing and chilling out a little bit and, you know all my team have told me this weekend, just relax, relax you know you’ve got it, you got the speed, just relax - so I think that’s what I’ve been doing - I don’t feel relaxed right now, but yeah, what a great end to a good weekend.

At the same table for the interview, Scott Redding asked if he had maybe relaxed too much as there was a gap back to third, with Cook responding:

“Perhaps, yeah, but it’s a good benchmark for me to come back next time. So, no, we’re good, really good.”

Next time , will be a trip to Scotland in a month for the Thruxton round over the 19-21 June.