Will and a way
Mark Winterbottom and Will Davison
What a difference a year makes. It seems like an eternity since we left Symmons Plains 2010 and almost instantly received the horrible news about Jason Richards’ illness.
365 days is such a long time in these increasingly busy days and all of a sudden here we are with just two events and four races remaining in this year’s V8 Supercars Championship.
The world just seems to spin faster and faster with each passing day, but one driver who will not be missing the events of 2010, or the plight he faced at this very time last year, is Ford Performance Racing’s Will Davison. Going into the 2010 Sandown Norton 360 double-header, Will was languishing down the points order in a very uncustomary 21st spot, frustrated that a year promising so much, had delivered so little.
Exactly one full year later and the former Australian Formula Ford Champion and British Formula 3 race winner is sitting in a very noteworthy sixth points position, and within one very good race weekend of challenging for a higher place still. Davison fits the ambience of the FPR team like a glove and since leaving the Holden Racing Team has shown renewed enthusiasm for all things V8 Supercars.
And Will’s form is not isolated either, with his team mate Mark ‘Frosty’ Winterbottom having now vaulted to third in the championship and judging by the genuine form of these two – plus Paul Dumbrell’s rapid speed at Symmons – it will be genuinely interesting to see if Will or PD can add their names to this year’s list of 12 winners. It’s real, FPR is back and if you dig a little deeper there’s reason for great optimism for all Ford fans.
Collectively, FPR has scored well for many rounds, on both hard and soft tyres and at venues that differ greatly from each other, be it the undulating high speed sweeps of Phillip Island and Bathurst, the concrete canyon of Surfers Paradise or the spirited little Tasmanian venue of last weekend. Consider this for a moment.Will, with Luke Youlden alongside, claimed pole at Phillip Island before finishing third, was on the front row at Bathurst and should have been on the podium (at least) at race end. He then qualified in third and fourth places at the Gold Coast, claiming second in the Saturday race and was only denied another podium spot on Sunday when a tyre failed with Mika Salo at the wheel.
From the weekend just completed we saw Will qualify in a pair of fifth places, before recording a fifth (having taken only two new tyres) on Saturday and an excellent second on Sunday, the only driver to keep Jamie Whincup truly honest. Frosty has been no slouch either, despite Phillip Island not being a brilliant weekend for him or his co-driver Steven Richards. Since then, Mark has finished fourth at Bathurst, third and first at Surfers and backed that up with a fourth and second place at Symmons Plains. This sort of form might not be enough to challenge the unstoppable Whincup, but it would more than keep the TeamVodafone driver honest, should those very results be sustainable.
Throw into the equation the Saturday qualifying speed of Tony D’Alberto, in his FPR built and technically assisted Wilson Security Racing machine, and you can see where I am coming from, while if not for a few race slip-ups last weekend, Dumbrell could well have beaten both of his more fancied team-mates to the finish line.
This weekend, we’re at Sandown and a track that should be well-suited to the FPR cars and drivers.
So while Jamie looks destined to roll off the laps at a speed sufficient to put the title out of reach, the battle for top FPR dog might just be the race within a race we need to keep an eye on. The soon-to-retire Dumbrell will want to go out on a high, Davison is seeking his first win of the year and these two will both be on genuine home soil as well, while Frosty wants to cement his position as the best of the rest and the first of the non-Triple Eight drivers in the championship point score.
There’s always plenty to play for and here’s to the FPR team – and D’Alberto too – having a huge crack at it this coming weekend at Sandown, and God help us if Davison does claim his seventh career win on Saturday or Sunday, because that horrible moustache will likely be seen hanging around until early December at least.
