WILL Davison is counting down the days until he gets to sample a slice of Formula 1 history.
The two-time Bathurst 1000 winner will steer the 1974 Hesketh 308 Formula 1 car raced by future world champions James Hunt and Alan Jones.
The V8-powered beast is featuring at the upcoming Repco Adelaide Motorsport Festival (February 28-March 1) where Davison will share the driving duties with Martin Donnelly and car owner James Hagan.
“It’s a huge honour for me to spend the weekend with James Hagan and Martin Donnelly,” Davison, who has previously clocked F1 mileage in Minardi machinery, told V8 Sleuth.
“As a true F1 historian myself, it’s going to be really special.
“So, James Hagan knows my dad really well – Dad drove his ’62 Lotus 22 at Goodwood last year, so that’s sort of where this began.
“James said he was coming here with the Hesketh and would love me to drive it, so that’s where it initiated.
“This is obviously a ‘70s-spec F1 car with enormous history, so it’s going to be very cool.”
That then led to the chance for Davison to also hop aboard his former race-winning Erebus Motorsport Mercedes V8 Supercar at the Adelaide festival.
“Being with Groves and Penrite, when I was chatting to Toby Dymond and the Dymond family who I knew now own the E63, I introduced Penrite with the event and then the Merc was able to come as well,” he explained.
“It’s been a funny month or two seeing all these things come to life, reuniting with the Merc but also knowing the Hesketh was coming and I’ll be doing double duties.”
Davison was responsible for the E63’s second and final Supercars Championship race win, achieved at the 2015 Perth SuperSprint.
“It probably goes underappreciated, what we did in that car,” he reminisced.
“I mean, I know I only won one race but I had a pole at Homebush, I had a podium at Townsville, but just plenty of top fives.
Pic: an1images.com / Scott Wensley
“I had some really, really good races in that car and particularly now I would say given what has happened in Gen3, it has really probably highlighted some of the obstacles Erebus and we had with that package and engine that wasn’t really cared about.
“We just knuckled down. It was a beautiful car and an amazing team of people at Erebus.
“It was quite a memorable time in my career. It was hard but I loved the car, it was beautifully built inside and it was actually a really good handling car, which our strength was tyre life.”
Having recently piloted Formula Atlantic and TA2 cars in New Zealand, Davison will represent Grove Racing in next week’s Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour.
He’s then due to turn his first laps in a Penrite Gen3 Mustang Supercar at the Sydney Motorsport Park pre-season test (or post-event ride day) before getting stuck into the Adelaide Motorsport Festival action.
James Moffat on the ridiculous 2014 Bathurst 1000 finish
IT will go down in the books as one of the wildest races in the storied history of the Bathurst 1000, with The Undercut’s James Moffat right in the heart of the action.