De la Rosa used testing mileage
to shine at Bahrain in 2005
SUTTONF1 SUBSTITUTES
“In those days you fl ew out last-minute
because you knew you would be testing
the following week, so I went on Thursday
with the senior management. With the
eight-hour time diff erence, I was in bits.
When I got the call on Saturday morning
to say I would be doing qualifying, all
I wanted to do was be in bed.
“I had about two hours of sleep the whole
night. And I was dead. I was thinking,
why, of all the chances I had. Why here?
Why now? Give me Barcelona any day!
“On top of that, the way qualifying
was done back then was on aggregate.
If you were new in the car, as I was, you
had to go out fi rst, so the track was green
and it was a one-lap qualifying shootout.
I was the fi rst one to go out there on a
totally green track. Everyone else went
out and just went faster.”
Having focused on race runs in testing,in a play, one day he might be able to prove
what he could do on the main stage.THE CALL-UP
When it does arrive, the big chance
doesn’t always work out as expected.
Witness Jean-Louis Schlesser replacing
an unwell Mansell at Williams for the
1988 Italian Grand Prix and clashing
with leader Ayrton Senna, or Luca
Badoer qualifying last in both of his
substitute appearances with Ferrari
following Felipe Massa’s Hungarian
Grand Prix qualifying accident in 2009.
Davidson’s golden opportunity came
when BAR’s regular driver Takuma Sato fell
ill at the 2005 Malaysian Grand Prix, but it
couldn’t have happened at a worse venue.
“I would have jumped at the chance
if it was Silverstone or Barcelona, but
Malaysia was tough,” recalls Davidson.at Jaguar, I knew nothing about Formula 1
compared to 2008 or 2005. McLaren for me
was the most interesting part of my career.
“You had to work for your race drivers,
and this meant adapting your style to what
their needs were. Kimi [Raikkonen] always
was very specifi c about a very diff erent
front geometry, and no one liked it but we
had to adapt to him. When I was testing or
in the simulator, we always used his front
geometry. If you want to be the complete
test driver, you have to be adaptable.”
With test drivers at that time often
completing more than 10,000km per
year, they were prized assets to teams.
“I actually gave up racing, rightly or
wrongly, but what that did do was endear
me to the team at Brackley,” says Davidson.
“I stayed loyal, they stayed loyal to me and
I knew no one else would give me a chance.
It was also a full-time job and that kept you
sharp. It kept you interested and massively
motivated. The focus was on trying one
day to get into a seat to race for real.”
Teams outside the top four in the
previous year’s constructors’ points
were permitted to run a third car in
Friday practice from 2004, which
helped boost Davidson’s case. As he
was accompanying the team to every
race, he would get the nod if anything
happened to either race driver. Forever
waiting in the wings, like the understudy
Can you afford
to let up on the
training this year?
No, especially not, it’s
the opposite really. I am
trying to do more, but I’ve
found the job is busier than
if I was racing – with PR events,
sponsor stuff , travelling,
going to races and going to
the simulator and staying
sharp like I was going to race.
Definitely if I jump in a car I’m
ready like I was last year.
Is it quite hard
mentally as a
racing driver to
have had the taste
of F1 but now being
on the sidelines?
Well of course it’s not easy to
swallow that I am not racing
during the season, but we are
working on solutions and there
should be opportunities. We
are having many discussions;
nothing has been sorted yet,
but hopefully it will.What does a typical
race weekend look
like for you?
I do the sim from 5pm to
3am in the morning and then
I fly to the races on Saturday
morning straight away with no
sleep, and then I do the whole
day at the track – so being at
the debrief and there if the
team have stuff to ask me.Esteban Ocon was
talking to Ma t t K e wQ&A
MERCEDES RESERVE DRIVER
ESTEBAN OCON“If you want to be
the complete test
driver, you have
to be adaptable”