Anthony Davidson: Back behind the wheel
Anthony Davidson’s last race was in Bahrain in November last year, which makes his enthusiasm for this weekend’s third round of the WEC Super Season even more convincing. When he says he can’t wait to be back behind the wheel, he really means it!
Davidson will make his debut in the LMP2 category at the 6 Hours of Silverstone driving the No.31 DragonSpeed ORECA 07 Gibson alongside Pastor Maldonado and Roberto Gonzalez.
“I definitely can’t wait to drive and race again – it’s ages since my last race – and that it’s my home race makes it the perfect way to get back into it," he says.
“I’m going to be jumping into the unknown a bit, racing in LMP2, but I’ve met the team at Spa and Le Mans and they’ve been very good at giving me lots of information about the car and how they operate so it should feel relatively familiar. It should be exciting and a challenge at same time.”
Still under contract to Toyota Gazoo Racing, for whom he drove at The Prologue in April, but very much part of the French-based DragonSpeed’s line up for the rest of the Super Season, the 2014 World Endurance Champion is looking forward to some flat-out racing in LMP2.
“It will be fun going toe-to-toe with people like Loïc Duval and Nico Lapierre in what are essentially the same cars and same engines. I think it’s the purist category out there without any BoP or EoT and I’m looking forward to that aspect.
“I love the technology of the hybrids but every driver likes to stay flat out till end of a straight and lean on the brake pedal! I think my biggest challenge will be getting used to looking in my mirrors more, and not for cars of the same speed but for those which are faster and slower. The job in hand will definitely be judging closing speeds of the new generation of non-hybrid LMP1s and, at the same time, being cut-throat in traffic and overtaking the GT cars.
“Thankfully the track is one I know well! I drove on the new surface in the two-seater F1 car at the British Grand Prix and it’s still quite bumpy, retaining the character of the old track. The new surface is similar to Paul Ricard and I like that it’s not billiard-table smooth as the bumps make it more challenging.”
Practice and qualifying at the 5.901 km Silverstone Circuit in Northamptonshire takes place on 17/18 August, with the 6-hour race itself getting underway on Sunday 19 August at 12h00 local time.
