Davison promises more to come

Will Davison says competitors will need to watch out when Erebus upgrades arrive, because the team is not far off race winning pace.

His Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG pushed through the field in Sunday’s 200km race, finishing seventh after starting 16th at the ITM 500 Auckland. The task proved even tougher with the 31-year old’s cool suit and helmet fan failing during the 70-lap race around the challenging circuit.

Davison felt he and the crew had lost their way on Saturday, but was happy with what they achieved for the final race, which included recording the fastest lap on the third dash around the Pukekohe Park circuit.

Only eventual winner Mark Winterbottom and second-place getter Scott McLaughlin could better Davison’s 1min03.9566, giving Davison a wealth of encouragement with the next event in Perth looming (May 16-18).

“We had a great race actually – a very enjoyable result because we maximised everything,” the 2014 Erebus recruit told v8supercars.com.au.

“It was a pretty aggressive strategy coming in lap one – for that to work we certainly needed good speed and good tyre life doing two stints of 35 laps. We had that… I wish we could’ve qualified again (at the end of the weekend), now we’re back to a top three/four car.

“We know we have a deficit in a straight, but in terms of the car’s handling and tyre life it was really, really nice.”

While Davison couldn’t give an exact timeframe, he mentioned upgrades were on the way for the Erebus beasts – and warned competitors to watch out once they were fitted.

“I’m not exactly sure what race we will have some upgrades on because they can’t come soon enough.

“I tell you, look out when we’ve got equal straight line speed to the other guys, because we’re nearly matching them on speed now and we’re giving up a speed deficit.”

Fresh off Erebus’ first win in V8 Supercars at Winton earlier this month, the team has been rewarded for the hard work involved in the transformation from Ford to Mercedes for the start of the 2013 season, when all cars had to be built to the new generation specifications. 

And while Davison was cautious of expecting too much too soon when joining the team this year, it’s all happening fairly quickly as he sits 10th in the Championship, boasting seven top 10 finishes from 13 races, and with Erebus sitting fifth in the teams’ standings, ahead of Nissan and Volvo newcomers. 

“The step forward we’ve taken is pretty impressive – you can’t do it overnight, it’s physically impossible – so very encouraging. We have taken such a step forward. I’m looking forward to the next step.”

The next hurdle in the Championship is Barbagallo Raceway, a circuit Davison has tamed before with two race wins to his name.

“Perth I’m really looking forward to actually – I think the car will be quite well-suited chassis-wise and again… with tyre degradation, that’s the biggest talking point at Perth – soft tyre, massive deg, and I think that’s one of our car’s strengths.

“We know we’ve got quite good tyre life so certainly looking forward to it.

“I think we’re on for another good showing, we’ve just got to keep maximising what we’ve got now.”

Capitalising when there is potential is what Davison put his teammate Lee Holdsworth's recent Winton win down to.

“I wouldn’t say exceptional circumstances, but a race with soft tyres – we had very good tyre life – Lee did an incredible job getting the car fourth on the grid (in qualifying). It’s not every day that type of race will fall into your hands but we had a car that day that had better tyre life than anyone else. He was able to capitalise and get the win.

“It wasn’t outright speed – we’re not there yet and we know that – but when those opportunities come up, Lee grabbed it.

“We’ve got a very good car generally on its tyres, but we need more outright speed. For sure we need to be winning consistently – doing it from pole and out the front.”