Davidson to land Aguri seat
"He wants to race," the long time works Honda test driver's father, Denis, told the newspaper Hemelhempstead Today in England.
"It's never been a secret."
Denis Davidson hinted that his son deserves Honda's backing in securing the seat at the small Honda-powered team run by Aguri Suzuki.
"For years he's devoted himself to Honda at the expense of his own racing," Davidson insisted.
"The management are seeing what they can do for him."
Should diminutive Anthony Davidson make the grid in 2007, his Aguri teammate would almost certainly be his former formula 3 sparring partner, Takuma Sato.
10/03/06 (GMM) Anthony Davidson is on the verge of signing a contract to become Takuma Sato's teammate at the Super Aguri F1 squad for the 2007 season.
According to British broadsheet newspapers Independent and Guardian, the long time works Honda test driver's deal could be unveiled either in Tokyo this week, or at the Suzuka circuit prior to Sunday's grand prix.
''Neither Davidson nor the Super Aguri team would comment,'' the London based Guardian newspaper wrote, but Honda team principal Nick Fry conceded in Shanghai last Sunday that the 27-year-old Englishman 'deserves' a full time race seat.
Further evidence of the diminutive driver's near-certain job at Super Aguri are Christian Klien's recent comments, when he ruled out the Japanese team as a destination for 2007 because Davidson appeared so close to a seat.
Nicknamed 'Ant', Davidson became the Brackley based formula one team's test driver in 2001, racing for them once in 2004 and twice for Minardi in 2002.
10/02/06 Anthony Davidson is expected to be confirmed later this week in Tokyo as one of the drivers of Super Aguri F1 for 2007. The 27-year-old British driver has been a test driver with BAR since 2001. He was loaned out to Minardi in 2002 and took part in two Grands Prix for the Italian team but then went back to testing again until Malaysia in 2005 when he substituted for an unwell Takuma Sato. Although he has not raced much, Davidson has a huge amount of testing mileage and has done an impressive job as a Friday driver as well. He has tried to go racing on a number of occasions but could not secure a drive because he could not give any long-term commitment as Honda wanted to keep him under contract. But for this he might have driven for Williams and Jaguar. Now, it seems, his loyalty to Honda is finally going to pay off with the chance of a driver with Super Aguri F1. Honda Racing F1 is keen to develop the testing skills of James Rossiter, who does occasional tests at the moment while also racing in the Renault World Series. More at Grandprix.com. We have updated our 2007 F1 Silly Season page.