How secret friendship with Lewis Hamilton defined Will Davison’s career
Before Felipe Massa and Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton's greatest rival was an Australian racer who shocked everyone by nearly reaching Formula One first.
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Before Felipe Massa, Nico Rosberg, and Sebastian Vettel, a third generation Australian racer was Lewis Hamilton’s greatest rival. This is the story of how Will Davison almost beat the future seven-time world champion to Formula One. And how he bounced back from living in his mum’s garage with a broken dream and a million-dollar debt to become a Supercars legend.
On the eve of his final race, the retiring legend revealed details of his secret friendship with Formula One’s greatest driver in a candid interview about his famous career.
“THIS IS A GEE UP”
As they walked towards the exclusive Formula One function room at Albert Park, the Gen Z Supercars pin-up boy glanced at the Ford veteran beside him.
“Come on,” Brodie Kostecki, the 26-year-old champion said. “You don’t really know Lewis Hamilton. Like, know him, know him, right?”
Will Davison, the two-time Bathurst 1000 winner, just smiled.
“I don’t just know him,” Davison said. “We’re mates.”
“Nah,” Kostecki shot back. “This is a gee-up.”
Davison shrugged as they flashed their credentials and stepped into a world of designer dresses, sharp suits, and corporate catering. Suddenly, a voice boomed from across the room.
“No way! Look who it is!”
Dressed in Ferrari red, his braided cornrows pulled into a bun, Lewis Hamilton charged towards them.
“My old mate Will Davison,” he said, brushing past Kostecki’s outstretched hand and pulling the Australian into a hug.
Kostecki just stood there, his mouth wide open.
On Sunday, Davison will line up for his 603rd and final Supercars race, a 250km sprint at the Adelaide Grand Final. It marks the last lap of a stellar career that has delivered two Bathurst titles, 20 championship race wins, and 81 podiums.
But as he gets ready for his farewell, news.com.au can reveal there’s more to the story than just a secret friendship with a seven-time F1 world champion. Before Felipe Massa and Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton’s first true rival was a third generation Australian racer named Will. He came much closer to joining him in Formula One than anyone ever realised.
BEATING HAMILTON
Long before he became a Mount Panorama King, Will Davison was a third-generation racer eager to follow in his legendary grandfather’s footsteps. His quest to become an open-wheeled star like Lex Davison – who won the Australian Grand Prix four times before tragically losing his life in a practice crash at Sandown International Raceway – started when he moved to the UK in 2002.
Then, at 19, he earned a spot on the British Formula Renault Championship grid driving for Motaworld Racing.
“The first year was tough,” Davison said. “First of all, I had to scrape together about £100,000 just to get on the grid. Then I had to learn all the circuits and the car.”
It was during his first year in the UK that he came across Hamilton – just 17 but already signed to McLaren-Mercedes on a “Young Driver Programme” deal.
“He was obviously a very talented driver,” Davison said. “He’d been identified by McLaren and was put on a path to Formula One. But to me, he was just another guy I had to beat.”
And did he beat him?
“Yeah, I beat him in a heap of races,” Davison said. “We had some bloody good battles and ended up becoming rivals. He was a great guy. Calm most of the time, but he could get feisty when it came to racing.”
In a series contested by 52 of the world’s best up-and-coming drivers, Davison found himself locked in a battle for third place in the championship with the young driver who would one day hold the record for most wins in Formula One.
“I ended up finishing fourth in the championship after a retirement in the third-last race,” Davison said. “But I felt I had a lot of improvement in me.”
THE FORMULA ONE DREAM
Davison took a step closer to Formula One the following year when he secured a drive in the prestigious British Formula Three championship.
“I was at the top of my game at the end of that year,” Davison said. “I landed poles and race wins and put myself in a position to start talking to Formula One teams.”
He also had a run-in with Hamilton.
“Yeah, we had a bit of a blue,” Davison recalled. “It was the second-last race of the year, and I’d won pole. He came up screaming, ‘F*k man, didn’t you see me in your mirrors?’ and saying I’d held him up. I told him I was on my own hot lap, and we ended up being fine.”
Davison believed his Formula One dream was close to coming true when he beat both Hamilton and Nico Rosberg at a Formula One test day in 2003.
“I finished with the fastest time on both days,” Davison said. “By three-tenths of a second. It was like a dream.”
THE 6 MILLION DOLLAR DRIVE
Davison was courted by several F1 teams and was even offered a drive.
“I had numerous meetings with F1 teams,” Davison said. “Some of them were big teams. I met with Williams several times with Brawn, which was Honda back then. I was even offered a drive with a team, but I needed to come up with $6 million to cover the budget, and that just wasn’t going to happen. So I decided to go back to Formula Three, win some races, and then have more talks.”
But the dream swiftly became a nightmare when Davison ran out of cash.
“It cost about a million a season to race in Formula Three, and I scraped, dug, and begged – did everything I could to find the money I needed to stay in Europe. Mark Webber was a great help; he organised fundraising nights. I even had Shane Warne help get guys like Sam Newman along.”
“But eventually, I ran out of money. Not just that, I was in debt. More than a million dollars. So I decided to cut my loses and come home. I just couldn’t compete with these guys when it came to money.”
His F1 dream was finished. But a legendary Supercars career was about to start.
BROKE AND BUSTED
Davison went back to Australia in 2004 and moved into his mum’s garage. With a million-dollar debt on his shoulders, he was earning only $220 a week as a driving instructor.
“Jamie Whincup had just lost his drive at GRM and thought his career was over,” Davison said. “So we were both unemployed, doing what we could to get by. We ended up getting a job with John Bowe doing drive days, and we thought the 220 bucks we earned was massive. I think we both went out and bought a pair of Air Max’s with our first pay cheque.”
Davison received a surprise call-up to Supercars in 2005 when he was signed by DJR as an endurance driver.
“I got paid 10k to do the endurance rounds and I thought I was rich,” Davison said. “But better than the money was that it gave me an opportunity to impress, and it led to me getting a full-time deal.”
Davison was soon well-paid, but he still had his million-dollar debt.
“I paid it back in instalments during my first three years with DJR,” Davison said. “I owed 30 or 40 people who had invested in my career, and I really didn’t want it hanging over my head. So when I joined HRT, I made an agreement with them where they gave me money upfront, and I used it to repay the investors.”
THE SUPERCARS LEGEND
With his debt wiped and Formula One dream forgotten, Davison went on to become a V8 legend.
Set to retire from full-time driving today after a late-season call by DJR left him without a seat, Davison departs the sport as a two-time Bathurst champion who is fourth on the all-time list for most race starts.
“I don’t have any regrets,” Davison said. “Not even about Formula One. I ended up becoming good mates with Lewis and followed his career. And watching what he did, yeah, there were times when I wondered. But I don’t think I would change anything.
“I am very proud of what I have achieved. I will finish up with 151 top five Supercars finishes and 318 top 10s. They might not be trophies, but that is something I am really proud of because it shows no matter what the team or the equipment, I have always been in the fight.”
