Davidson about the accident at Le Mans and the collaboration with Mercedes

Anthony Davidson, a former Formula 1 driver, once spent 24 Grand Prix as part of perhaps the weakest teams in the championship. He made his debut with Minardi in 2002 and subsequently worked with BAR as a test driver, performing in just one race but withdrawing from the Malaysian Grand Prix due to an engine failure.

But Anthony mainly raced for Super Aguri, but this team did not last long, after which the British racer switched to endurance racing and achieved his most important successes in the WEC: in 2014 he became world champion with the Toyota factory team .

“When people ask me if I have any regrets related to my career, of course there are regrets,” Davidson said in an interview with the championship’s official website. – All those years I worked as a test driver in F1 should have been spent racing. This is my advice to young riders: they should find an opportunity to compete in some other categories.

At the time, LMP1 cars were quite similar to Formula 1 cars, except they had an enclosed cockpit. I really enjoyed driving it, and this experience is still useful to me. This is real racing! Furthermore, the WEC has such absolutely magical events as the Le Mans Marathon, and although this circuit was very brutal for me, I still remember this test with fondness.”

When Davidson says the French circuit was cruel to him, that is not an exaggeration. In 2012, during the 24 Hours of Le Mans, he was involved in an accident and suffered serious back injuries. In a Toyota sports prototype on the Mulsanne straight, he overtook a much slower Ferrari 458 GTC at high speed, but a collision occurred that is still remembered by all who saw that race.

Anthony had a bad feeling that day: “I never do this, but before the race I left my room at the track and then went back to get everything sorted out. Then I texted my wife saying I loved her. It’s like I already knew I wouldn’t return to this room – now, just remembering it gives me goosebumps…

When I got behind the wheel, I did what I had to do: take risks, drive like crazy, but then this moment came. The driver I was overtaking suddenly shifted on the track, contact took place between the cars and as my Toyota flew into the air, the engine died, there was silence and at that moment the thought flashed: “This is what happened!”

It was more than a strange feeling; in fact, I realized I was going to die. And after that I felt completely at ease. I don’t know how the brain works at such times, but it’s like a strong sedative spreading through the body…”

When the car fell, Davidson suffered two serious blows: in the first case, the overload exceeded 30 G and at that moment his spine was damaged. The second hit was weaker, but the overloads were still over 10G.

“…The blow was very strong,” Anthony continued. – The head was not damaged, but when the car landed on its wheels, as the team later discovered, the overload was 32G. At the moment of that blow the spine broke, it was like an explosion.

A blow of incredible force fell on my body, I let out a kind of primal scream – I have never screamed like that in my life! Then the front of the car hit the barriers too, and when it stopped, I opened my eyes and couldn’t believe I was still in it…”

Anthony took about six months to recover, and he says that accident changed his attitude towards racing. He especially started to behave a little differently when overtaking slow cars. And two years later he became world champion in endurance racing together with his Toyota teammates.

At that time he was already working as an expert with the channel Sky Sports, which he continues to do successfully to this day, and his analysis of various situations that arise on the Formula 1 circuits during the Grand Prix is ​​appreciated and viewed. very carefully by true fans. But what the public knows much less is that Anthony has been working as a simulator driver for the Mercedes team for more than ten years.

“In the early 2000s, I was one of the people who asked Honda to build a simulator, because I knew McLaren was doing that,” he recalls. – When the Honda team became Brawn, we had a static simulator, but it could still be called a simulator.

Afterwards (during the Mercedes era) we continued to work on continuously improving these technologies, and now the Brackley team has a sixth generation simulator. It’s impossible to believe how much progress these technologies have made compared to previous times, and I’m very happy to still be involved.

The simulator training helps me in my work as a Sky expert, because I receive a lot of information about the behavior of modern Formula 1 cars on the track and know how the drivers feel. Moreover, over the years I have learned to distinguish between what can and cannot be told to the fans, so as not to reveal any secrets of the team.

I can only spend a limited amount of time on the simulator, but it is still a lot of fun for me and I feel like I am part of the process of upgrading the Mercedes car. It’s been 22 years since I joined the team from Brackley, they are like family to me and it’s a huge privilege.