Keep Your Distance!

Will Davison and Jamie Whincup are close mates, but they will be planning to keep their distance at the Sargent Security Phillip Island 360.

Davison took Whincup out in a wild collision during a frantic V8 Supercars Championship race at the motorcycle grand prix circuit in 2012 (see the three minute mark of the highlights clip).

If it were to happen again this year it will be a huge problem for Whincup and just about knock Davison out of Championship contention.

Red Bull Racing Australia’s Craig Lowndes leads the title chase on 2549 points, just six ahead of teammate Whincup.

Davison lies fourth on 2428 points after the hectic ARMOR ALL Gold Coast 600, while his Pepsi Max Ford Performance Racing teammate Mark Winterbottom is third on 2461 points.

Just five races and a maximum 600 points remain up for grabs across the two remaining Championship events at Phillip Island on November 22-24 and the Sydney 500 at Sydney Olympic Park in early December.

Davison saw both sides of the racing ledger at Phillip Island last year, colliding with Whincup at Honda Corner after bouncing off Tim Slade’s SBR Falcon and onto wet grass. Winterbottom went on to win that race.

But Davison fought back to take victory next time out after a fierce dice with Winterbottom.

“I won there last year, I like the place but it is extremely set-up specific and so I don’t want to get carried away,” said Davison. “We are still in there and we are in the hunt.”

Whincup saw his Championship lead evaporate at the last event on the Gold Coast with an opening race DNF for the Red Bull Holden Commodore VF. The problems started with poor qualifying and were compounded in the race when co-driver Paul Dumbrell got hooked up with the Holden Racing Team’s Greg Murphy.

“Unfortunately mechanical failure dumped us 150 points,” said Whincup. “We fought for months to get a 150 point lead and it all goes in one round. It is a massive hit. 

“We will prepare over this next month and go down to Phillip Island and see what we can do.

“FPR dominated there last year so that’s obviously a question mark. We are not comfortable going to Phillip Island, but we are confident we will be competitive.

“But FPR really hammered us hard there last year so we have some work to do." 

No-one will be able to read too much into last year’s Phillip Island results because the category has transitioned to new Car of the Future technical regulations for 2013 and the fast and flowing track has been resurfaced.

Both Whincup and Davison had strategy issues on the Gold Coast in last Sunday’s 300km race.

Whincup chose to drive conservatively and stay off the suspension-breaking kerbs because he could not afford another DNF. He ended up finishing fourth, swallowing oil smoke from Russell Ingall’s Supercheap Auto Holden Commodore VF for the last third of the race.

“Unfortunately I had to think a bit more about points rather than just going all out,” Whincup admitted. 

Davison and co-driver Steve Owen managed sixth place from 21st on the grid in their Pepsi Max Ford Falcon FG II on Saturday and were seemingly on-track for the podium on Sunday until an issue struck and they ended up finishing ninth.

“We have got though the Gold Coast and it’s just about minimising mistakes and keeping our heads,” Davison said. “I wanted to come out of that crazy event well and truly in the fight and I want to just fight it out all the way into Homebush. 

“Because if I am within 100 points come Homebush it’s game on. I love that circuit, anything can happen. So it’s getting pretty exciting. 

“It is still wide open, we just have got to get some things to roll my way.”