Davison: Last-minute decision aided podium
Will Davison hailed his team’s last-minute decision to pit early en route to a Race 21 podium.
Davison raced from sixth to second in Saturday’s OTR SuperSprint opener.
The Shell V-Power Racing Team veteran’s 10th podium of 2022 was perhaps his most unlikely.
Davison was off the pace all day, and loomed to be knocked out of qualifying twice.
However, he saved his best for the race, first beating teammate Anton De Pasquale to fifth.
He then stopped from behind Chaz Mostert early on, and aided by an undercut, gained track position.
The two-time Bathurst winner held onto second, and trailed winner Shane van Gisbergen home.
"It was a last-minute decision to come in from behind Chaz,” he said.
"You know we made it work really well and I pushed reasonably hard and just managed the gap.
"I still had some decent tyre left at the end so once I knew I was sort of safe in the last few laps the car got better and better.”
Davison was as low as 24th in Q1 before he sealed passage to Q2 with a clutch lap.
He snuck into Q3, again by the skin of his teeth, but was only good enough for sixth.
The 39-year-old’s pathway to retaining his seat was aided by Will Brown’s re-signing with Erebus, which was announced on Saturday.
Davison responded with one of his best drives of the season, and he duly paid tribute to his team.
"To get to second from sixth, I’ll take it,” he said.
“It was definitely a tough qualifying run for us, but I think we did a good job to get to where we are now.
"The guys did an awesome job, I have to thank them… we certainly had no plan.
“It was sort of just get off the line and see where we’re at, what the pace and balance is like with the car.
"I felt quite decent in the first few laps but certainly, the overcut is a strategy that can work really well here.
“It’s something that’s been really effective for me in the past."
Cars will return to the track on Sunday for dual ARMOR ALL Qualifying sessions at 9:35am local time.
