Breaking news
WEC
Davidson feels back to his best after mid-year struggles
Toyota LMP1 driver Anthony Davidson believes he is back at the top of his game after a hat-trick of race wins following his return to the FIA World Endurance Championship this season.
Jamie Klein
Edited: Dec 12, 2017, 7:06 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Along with his teammates in the #8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima, Davidson began the season with back-to-back wins at Silverstone and Spa.
But the Briton endured a tough middle part of the season, missing September's Austin race for what the team described as "personal reasons" after a subdued showing in Mexico City.
It marked the second race that Davidson has been forced to skip in two years, as he withdrew from the 2016 Mexico event following a testing crash at Magny-Cours that left him with bruised ribs and shingles.
The 38-year-old nonetheless believes he is now back to the form that took he and Buemi to the 2014 championship crown following on from wins in Fuji, Shanghai and Bahrain at the end of the year.
"I certainly feel that by the end of the season I was back to driving the car exactly how I was when I won the championship," Davidson told Motorsport.com.
"I had a bit of a struggle at the end of last year, I feel like I've come back. It's all linked into the reason I missed Austin, but now I'm back and stronger than ever before now."
A 'what could have been' season
Victory over Porsche in the Bahrain season finale meant Davidson, Buemi and Nakajima finished the season with five race wins, establishing a new WEC record.
But a distant eighth-place finish in the Le Mans 24 Hours, the result of a two-hour spell in the garage to replace a front motor and battery, cost the trio dearly relative to race winners Brendon Hartley, Timo Bernhard and Earl Bamber, who went on to wrap up the title for Porsche.
Davidson believes that, had Le Mans not been such a disaster, the championship fight would have played out differently, especially as Toyota resumed development on the TS050 Hybrid towards the end of the year.
"We took two wins at the start of the year, which goes to show what a crippling race Le Mans can be if you don't score good points there with the double points system," Davidson said.
"That's really what knocked us this year in terms of the championship. If Le Mans had gone our way, we would have probably gone on to win the drivers' championship – or at least it would have been very tight, and it would definitely have been decided in Bahrain.
"It was a 'what could have been' season. But at least we ended with the fastest car.
"The updates were small, but they were enough to get us back enough by the end of the season. And five wins in a season is something that's never been achieved before in WEC."
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Lotterer, Jani set for Rebellion LMP1 WEC drives
Next article Turner: 2018/19 no learning season for Aston Martin
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Jamie Klein
Super Formula Fuji: Ayumu Iwasa wins as Kakunoshin Ohta misses chance to seal title
Super Formula
Super Formula
Fuji II
Super Formula Fuji: Ayumu Iwasa wins as Kakunoshin Ohta misses chance to seal title
Super Formula Fuji: Igor Fraga wins while Kakunoshin Ohta closes on title
Super Formula
Super Formula
Fuji II
Super Formula Fuji: Igor Fraga wins while Kakunoshin Ohta closes on title
More from
Anthony Davidson
F1 British GP safety car finish defended amid fan backlash
Formula 1
Formula 1
British GP
F1 British GP safety car finish defended amid fan backlash
Mercedes reliability woes open door to Ferrari championship bid, says former F1 driver
Formula 1
Formula 1
British GP
Mercedes reliability woes open door to Ferrari championship bid, says former F1 driver
Franco Colapinto praised for "cat-like reactions" after avoiding Liam Lawson crash in Australia
Formula 1
Formula 1
Australian GP
Franco Colapinto praised for "cat-like reactions" after avoiding Liam Lawson crash in Australia
More from
Toyota Racing
Toyota answers critics who doubted it could win in WEC’s competitive Hypercar era
WEC
WEC
Barcelona
20 h
Toyota answers critics who doubted it could win in WEC’s competitive Hypercar era
WEC Barcelona: Toyota scores dominant 1-2 to seal manufacturers’ title
WEC
WEC
Barcelona
WEC Barcelona: Toyota scores dominant 1-2 to seal manufacturers’ title
Latest news
FIA ratifies key 2027 WRC sporting regulations
WRC
WRC WRC 1 h
FIA ratifies key 2027 WRC sporting regulations
Toprak Razgatlioglu to miss the rest MotoGP season due to shoulder injury
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Australian GP
2 h
Toprak Razgatlioglu to miss the rest MotoGP season due to shoulder injury
MotoGP teams told Qatar Grand Prix expected to go ahead
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Qatar GP
2 h
MotoGP teams told Qatar Grand Prix expected to go ahead
Feature
Discover prime content
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe