Davidson's F1 career may break down over Super Aguri's lack of funds

13 April 2012

The odds may be stacked heavily against him but English driver Anthony Davidson is prepared to battle for his Grand Prix future.

"I've had a tough career," he said. "Nothing has been handed to me on a plate. I've always had to fight for it. I am a fighter and I really will be angry if everything ends now."

Davidson's fear is that Formula One is about to say sayonara to the cash-strapped Japanese Super Aguri team which may have run for the last time in last weekend's Spanish Grand Prix.

Scroll down for more

Worried: Anthony Davidson may have driven his last race

Talks surrounding a takeover by the London-based Magma automotive group and Dubai International Capital — also seeking an major involvement at Liverpool Football Club — are reported to have foundered.

Now team owner Aguri Suzuki has flown to Japan where tomorrow he will seek to secure a last-ditch deal with Honda, who already supply the cars of Davidson and Japanese team-mate Takuma Sato with engines.

The prospects do not look good.

Nick Fry, head of Honda's principle F1 team that runs Jenson Button, said: "We've been working as hard as we possibly can to find a solution for Aguri, but at this stage I'm not overly optimistic.

"It was never Honda's intention to fully fund two F1 teams. Aguri need to find funding of their own."

If that does not happen before Saturday, Super Aguri will not travel to next week's Turkey Grand Prix. But few of Davidson's rivals will mourn their absence.

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, who bolstered his defence of the world championship with victory in Barcelona, was one of those to moan about the comparatively ponderous Super Aguris getting in his way.

But Davidson, 29, said: "I know there are some drivers out there who complain about us holding them up every now again, but they can shut right up.

"When you can hardly see what the hell is going on because the car is shaking around so much, and you're just fully focused on keeping the damn thing on the track, the last thing you can do is be bothered about others trying to lap you.

"I'd love to swap cars with these drivers. I really believe some of them would struggle, or even crack, if they were in our position."

Davidson, a highly-respected test driver with Honda before getting his chance with Super Aguri last season, has performed heroics with a machine that lacks any kind of development. In Spain, he qualified less than a tenth of a second slower than the far better financed Force India car of Adrian Sutil.

He said: "It was amazing to get so close to Sutil given our lack of testing and — the team won't like me for saying this — a botched job of a car.

"We turned up in Spain with no spare parts at all. Just one trip across the gravel in practice could have destroyed a floor, and we didn't have a spare."

It was typical of Davidson's luck that his race ended when a stone, thrown on to the track when Nelson Piquet Jnr spun off, found its way through a tiny hole in the bodywork and punctured a radiator.

"That was the hardest weekend of my life in Formula One," Davidson admitted.

The shame is it might also have been his last.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT