Davidson finally handed F1 drive

David Tremayne
Thursday 16 November 2006 01:00 GMT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Anthony Davidson, for so long one of the "nearly men" of Formula One, has finally secured a race seat. The British driver will compete with Super Aguri next season alongside Japan's Takuma Sato.

The Japanese team announced yesterday that Davidson would, as expected, step up to a race role having been the engine supplier Honda's official test and development driver since 2001.

Aguri Suzuki, the team principal and himself a former Formula One racer, said: "Anthony has been with Honda as a test driver for a while now and he brings to us a wealth of experience in Formula One."

Davidson, who had once despaired of making the step up to race driver, said: "This is a great opportunity for me and I'm really excited about my first full season as a race driver in Formula One. I've been impressed with the improvements the team have made through the 2006 season, and I can already see from my first visits to the factory that the team are very hard-working and highly motivated."

The 27-year-old from Hemel Hempstead made an impressive Formula One debut as a stand-in driver with Minardi in Hungary in 2002 and also stood in for Sato with British American Racing in Malaysia in 2005. As Honda's Friday driver, he was fastest overall eight times this season.

A former karting champion, Davidson was a contemporary of Honda's Jenson Button. "It's always been really close between us," he said. "He won lots of our early kart stuff, and I won lots of our later races."

With Lewis Hamilton set to graduate with McLaren, Britain will have four drivers on the grid next year as he and Davidson join the Englishman Button and the Scot David Coulthard.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in