I was hugely disappointed when Ant Davidson slipped out of F1 with the collapse of the Super Aguri team in 2008. He was always one of my favourite drivers of the modern era; a great racer and a great developer/tester too… your kind of ideal man in any team really.
(And also someone pretty much devoid of ego – very refreshing and likeable in today’s F1).
The good news – apart from the fact that he’s a brilliant commentator (press your red button on the BBC’s F1 coverage and get swapping the audio channel to him and David Croft on Radio 5 Live!) is that he still has his hand in as a driver, and now there’s some great news of his entering one of motorsport’s legendary annual events this coming month.
Aston Martin Racing recently confirmed that Ant will be one of three new drivers recruited to enable the team to run a trio of Gulf-liveried LMP1 cars at this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours, which marks the 50th anniversary of Aston Martin’s first victory at La Sarthe in 1959. Joining the existing Aston Martin drivers along with Ant will be Stuart Hall (GB) and Jos Verstappen (NL).
Ant recently tested Aston Martin’s LMP1 car in Portugal, completing three one-hour stints and is a familiar face in this category of motorsport as he worked with the team in 2003, racing at Le Mans, Sebring and Petit Le Mans in the GT class.
“Particularly as a British driver, racing for a team as prestigious as Aston Martin is a fantastic opportunity,” says Ant… “I know the team and its capabilities extremely well from the past, and I’m convinced that there is nobody better prepared to tackle all the challenges that Le Mans will present us with. At the test I felt comfortable with the car straight away, and now I’m looking forward to taking the fight to the other teams at Le Mans. I’m certainly aiming for us to be the quickest petrol car there and hopefully we can get in amongst the diesels as well.”
The Le Mans 24 Hours race takes place on 13-14 June.
Best of luck Ant – hope you do brilliantly :-)
Okay… Weird headline… Sounds a bit random stream of consciousness I know.
Sorry but couldn’t think of a better ‘short’ way of putting it.
Think I may have to treat myself to one of these for the summer…
A funky t-shirt off the Red Bubble website – by a Brighton designer called Roger – featuring a skull made out of two sets of Mac keyboards.
The white keys come from an extended white Mac keyboard; the black keys were taken from the original iMac.
To check it out in full, or indeed to go buy it, you should click here…
Okay – since I started writing that, I succumbed to temptation and bought it.
Feel much better for doing so. You probably should too…
Spotted on Cult of Mac
I had one of those random synaptic firings after I posted the piece on TFL’s “Departure Boards” web tool – which reminded me of the excellent Animals On The Underground website.
If you’ve never encountered this, it’s a bundle of fun – and something you too can have fun with if you have a copy of the Underground diagram and a pencil…
Basically people have found the shapes of all kinds of animals in the lines of the London Underground as they’re displayed on Harry Beck’s ‘Diagram’ – or ‘map’ as it’s lazily referred to.
A few years back there were very few animals – I believe a guy called Paul Middlewick was the initiator of all this, but it seems to have blossomed more recently, and there’s a whole page of them here…
And they’ve also got some cool merchandise, which helps fund IFAW.
Cool / weird trick of the day…
Click on this link to go to Google Maps, or alternatively try putting ’54 Great Russell St, Camden Town’ into the Google Maps page…
Then click on “Street View”.
Street View, it would appear, is not only an intrusion into privacy but also some kind of portal into an alternate universe.
(*Taxpayers’ money well-spent, don’t you think…)
Sorry about the tabloid headline by the way. Couldn’t help it.
The latest news on the expenses scandal is the revelation that those who are forced to quit over their thieving from the public purse are likely to get huge pay-offs and pensions… Given how the government has been so adept at rushing through ‘emergency’ legislation to try and curb our human rights I’ll be shocked and disappointed if they don’t rush something through to prevent such payouts.
Who am I kidding – I’ll be not in the least bit surprised if they do bugger all.
Also, the ludicrous Douglas Hogg MP – from now on to be called Mr Moativator – has actually been bettered by another Tory stereotype, Sir Peter Viggers, who spent well over one and a half grand of our money on what has been described as either a “Duck Palace” or a “Duck Island” – one of which sounds like a Chinese restaurant and the other a very disappointing pirate movie. I personally think it’s best described as a “fucking liberty”.
The other update is that Hazel Blears’ head is now considered to be in serious danger of falling off altogether. It’s been madly bobbing around like a bladder on a stick for sometime now, but anyone seeing news reports from the last couple of days must surely be alarmed at the wild rocking and rotating that’s developing. Like something out of the Exorcist really…
She needs some scaffolding round it, and sharpish too. But she can pay for it herself, the scheming old bat.
