Anthony
Davidson

Anthony Davidson was born in Hemel Hempstead on 18 April 1979. He started karting in 1987 at the age of eight and won three British championships, in 1993, 1994 and 1995. He moved into single-seaters in 1999. In 2000 he finished runner-up in British Formula Ford, won the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch and took the McLaren/Autosport Young Driver of the Year Award. In 2001 he was second overall in British Formula Three with Carlin, behind his team-mate Takuma Sato.

Davidson had become a BAR test driver in late 2000. In 2002 he stood in for Alex Yoong at Minardi for two races, the Hungarian and Belgian Grands Prix, which were his first Formula One starts. He spun out of both. In 2005 he replaced the unwell Sato at BAR in Malaysia, but his engine failed after only two laps. Until 2006 he remained a test driver for the team, which by then ran as Honda.

In 2007 he secured a full-time seat at Super Aguri alongside Sato. His best results were three eleventh places, in Spain, Canada and the United States. In Canada he had been running third until a collision with a groundhog on the straight dropped him back. He ended the season 23rd in the championship without points. In 2008 he made four starts and was classified 22nd. Super Aguri withdrew from Formula One after the Spanish Grand Prix. Davidson finished with 24 starts in total.

He then worked as a test driver for Honda, and later for Brawn GP and Mercedes, where he was reserve and simulator driver in 2010 and 2011 and kept a simulator role from 2012. Alongside this he raced sportscars: with Aston Martin at Le Mans in 2009, then for Peugeot in 2010 and 2011, winning the 2011 6 Hours of Spa. From 2012 to 2017 he drove for Toyota in the LMP1 class of the World Endurance Championship, finishing second at Le Mans in 2013 and winning the drivers' title in 2014 with Sébastien Buemi. From 40 starts in the top class he took 13 victories. He then raced for three more seasons in LMP2 with DragonSpeed and Jota, retiring after the 2021 campaign.

In 2009 Davidson became a permanent co-commentator for BBC Radio 5 Live, and he has been an analyst for Sky Sports F1 since 2012. From 2022 he has also been one of the lead commentators on the World Endurance Championship world feed.

Source: Wikipedia, “Anthony Davidson”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.