Finding himself watching from the sidelines this past weekend at Castle Combe was Aussie racer Will Davison. Here Will explains why he's there, what it feels like, and what's next.
Q:
How frustrating is it to be sitting out at the moment and not racing?
Will Davison
As a racing driver I love to drive and I love to race, so obviously it's extremely difficult watching from the sidelines.
But the reality is if you are going to have any chance of moving up the ladder toward
F1, you have to have everything working for you and be consistently winning races and running at the front. Our qualifying pace has simply not been good enough this year and when the results aren't coming you start asking yourself a lot of questions.
I have won and had plenty of podiums at this level so I know what I am capable of and the important thing at present is to stay confident in my abilities and myself.
Q:
You did have a strong start to 2004, with three podiums from the first five races…
WD:
For sure. Pre-season testing was all looking good for Fairuz (Fauzy, team-mate) and myself. We were consistently in the top three and pushing each other really hard. I thought we were really going to be on top of things and I just couldn't wait for the season to get underway.
There was definitely a change in tyre compound from pre-season and, from the very first round, we have never been strong enough, particularly in qualifying. My only consolation being that I have qualified and finished ahead of my team-mate on nearly every occasion.
I am always strong under racing conditions, particularly in the first few laps while everyone is sorting themselves out and usually pick up quite a few positions.
But all my podiums this year have been achieved from outside the first two rows of the grid and you simply cannot rely on consistently achieving good results at this level if you do not qualify well, particularly when the top 10 on the grid are often covered by less than half a second.
