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IN THE COCKPIT: Alex Davison, Gold Coast 600
The only criticism I have is that some drivers put the helmet on and turn their brains off. Tagliani did some silly things and Lyons clearly punted us into the wall.
Alex Davison  |  Posted October 26, 2011  
The big blue Ford Falcon had speed on the Gold Coast, but not the results the Stone Brothers team had hoped for. (Photo: Marshall Pruett)
Davison's V8 Blog on SPEED.com

The Gold Coast race has always been one of the biggest events in Australia. We’ve been racing on the streets of Surfers Paradise for 21 years, so this year is a big anniversary.

It all started in 1991 when the CART World Championship went abroad and committed to a race on the Gold Coast. We had America’s best racers visit Australia every year through to 2008. It was a tough event to win, highlighted by the fact that it took till 2007 to find a repeat winner, when Sebastien Bourdais won his second race and his fourth title.

We’ve had some of the greats of international racing win here, Emerson Fittipaldi in 1992, former F1 champ Nigel Mansell in 1992, Michael Andretti, Paul Tracy, Scott Pruett and who can forget Alex Zanardi’s signature donuts after his 1998 win. There’s a lot of history and it is still building.

After IndyCars decided to stop visiting Australia, V8 Supercars took over as the main category and decided to invite international drivers to partner the full-time drivers – which was a popular decision.

What we now call the Gold Coast 600; with two races, each three hundred kilometres in length, and alongside the famous Surfers beach front, is Australia’s biggest party.
German Porsche ace Marc Lieb, left, joined his old teammate, Alex Davison, right, for the Gold Coast 600. (Photo: Irwin Racing)

The atmosphere is amazing, we get big crowds – 181,000 people over the three days – there’s plenty for the fans to see on and off the track and we get some of the biggest bands in the world. Last year we had ‘The Beach Boys’ and this year ‘Simple Minds’ rocked the place.

Last year about half of the V8 teams had international co-drivers, this year we all did. It’s cool for us to have the international drivers over here and I think they all really enjoy it. It provides lots of overseas exposure, which is great for our series.

The only criticism I have is that some drivers put the helmet on and turn their brains off. Alex Tagliani did some silly things and Richard Lyons clearly punted the IRWIN Ford into the wall.

It is the job of the invited co-driver to support the full-time V8 drivers, we are still racing for a championship, it is their job to drive cleanly, incident free and hand the cars back in good condition. Most did this, some did not. Despite this, I am still a big fan of the concept.

My team, Stone Brothers Racing, had three terrific racers. I teamed with European Le Mans Series driver Marc Lieb. Not only is he seriously fast, but he’s been one of my best mates for over 10 years. It’s been awesome having him here, he’s a quiet achiever but he does a bloody good job. We also had Le Mans 24-Hour legend Emanuele Pirro and one of IndyCars’ best, Helio Castroneves. Those two are characters and a lot of fun to be around. The Italian and the Brazilian bouncing off each other gave us plenty of laughs. They have fun, but they go about their racing in a very professional manner, so you can trust them.

The event itself for IRWIN Racing showed a lot of promise, but it all counted for nought in the end. Both Marc and I were in the top 10 in practice, I qualified for the top-10 shootout and we began the first race in fifth place, which was well deserved. Marc Lieb started the race, but he had a bit of a stumble and lost a few places before the first corner. Then Tagliani hit him and finally Lyons punted him off the track. There was a lot of damage but we got going again – 23 laps down – to finish the race.

In the Sunday race, we started 12th and had good car speed in the race - we had good car speed in both races actually - Marc started the race again and did a brilliant job. He went from 12th to sixth, and handed me an immaculate car at the first pit stop. I thought we could challenge for the top five, but in my last stop I was cleared to leave the pit bay, was alongside another car and then given a drive-through for dangerously merging into the fast lane. I just did what I was told, but I thought a drive-through was too harsh. Basically I got the same penalty as Lyons got for drilling Marc into the wall in the Saturday race, which baffles me.

So another Gold Coast race is over and I’ll look forward to the next one, but the focus now turns to the Tasmanian event in three week’s time.

Till next time,

Alex Davison

Alex Davison is a third-generation racing driver having followed on from his father Richard Davison, an Australian F2 champion, and his late grandfather Lex Davison, a four-time Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix winner. Alex has raced Porsches internationally and has spent the last two seasons racing his IRWIN Tools Ford Falcon in the V8 Supercars Championship for Stone Brothers Racing, one of the biggest teams in the V8 pit lane.

Learn more about Alex and the IRWIN team at www.irwinracing.com.au.
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