June 19, 2016, La Sarthe, 14.57 CEST. This was the moment that Anthony Davidson knew he was destined never to win the Le Mans 24 Hours. Having just relayed the runaway No5 Toyota Gazoo Racing TS050 Hybrid to Japanese team-mate Kazuki Nakajima, the British ace was then forced to watch despairingly from the garage as the car ground to a halt on the start/finish straight just a lap from the chequered flag. Despite a total of nine top-flight efforts with the likes of Toyota, Peugeot and Aston Martin, Le Mans victory would almost inexplicably escape him. It’s hard to think of another driver more deserving of one.
After half a life dedicated (perhaps overly) in search of a race seat in Formula 1, Davidson marked himself out as one of the top talents in sports car racing, and that Le Mans near-miss certainly shouldn’t define his career. He’s been a winner at Sebring, a world champion with Toyota, raced in 24 grands prix and is now a key part of Mercedes’ F1 test team. Not bad for a driver who didn’t come from a wealthy background and had to fight tooth and nail for every opportunity.
Before the end of the 2021 season, Davidson, now 42, announced his retirement from professional racing. Shortly after he lifted the third-place trophy for the FIA World Endurance Championship’s LMP2 class, giving his career one final coat of gloss. After all, every professional would rather bow out from the podium than the doldrums.
Motor Sport:
Let’s start with retirement. Where has this come from?
Anthony Davidson: “I think Le Mans was a big part of it. For the last few years, it’s been the only race on the calendar that stands out as being the most risky or dangerous. It’s like drivers going to IndyCar prepared to do the street tracks, but preferring to sit out the ovals. Le Mans became a bit like that for me. It’s a dangerous race, and I’ve seen great drivers like Allan Simonsen lose their lives to it, and that stays with you. I’ve also been damaged by it [Davidson broke his back during an airborne crash in 2012] so I know first-hand how things can go wrong there. I never think about the danger of any track, aside from Le Mans. And recently the danger has just become larger and larger in my mind.
“I remember this kid called Button demolishing everyone“
“You also have to ask so much from yourself to get through it, drawing on physical and mental strength and I’ve found myself looking at that race on the calendar at the start of every year and dreading it rather than loving the thought of doing it. That makes it so hard to get into the right headspace. I also found that I was having to dig deeper to get into the wheel-to-wheel fights, mostly because the older you get the more you see the bigger picture. I’m from that generation where we started racing as eight-year-olds, against Jenson Button and Dan Wheldon and Justin Wilson… drivers who were serious competitors right from the word go. For me it’s been a long journey, 34 years trying to be the best. It started to take its toll and I stopped enjoying that intense competition.
“I’ve always been quite hard on myself, and perhaps I’ve focused a bit too much on the negatives rather than the positives and mentally that’s tough when you know things are declining. I still wanted to be the same driver that I was 10 years ago. I didn’t want to get frustrated with myself over that, so the time was right to stop.”
Was it just your own perceptions that made your mind up, or were you worried about what other people thought?
“A bit of both. I joined sports cars when drivers like Dindo Capello were already in their late forties, and still racing up front with Audi. Dindo was consistent, but wasn’t setting the world alight, so it was so easy to walk in as a young driver and think, ‘Well, that guy isn’t very good!’ but I remember trying to explain to other young drivers who would arrive in sports cars in their early twenties and turn their nose up at older drivers. I always said, ‘You can only be snidey when you’re their age and still performing at the rate you are right now. Turn your nose up when you’ve held a works drive for as long as they have.’ But I didn’t want to see myself like that, or for people to see me like that: as some old guy clinging on to a drive.”