Anthony Davidson thinks his charge for a full time F1 cockpit was damaged by disastrous grand prix outings for Minardi and BAR.
The 27-year-old Briton will finally appear regularly for Super Aguri this season, but for the past half a decade – to no avail – the long time Honda test driver was an annual fixture of the silly season.
He now admits that racing twice alongside Mark Webber at Minardi in 2002, where he twice failed to finish or outpace Webber at the difficult Hungaroring and Spa-Francorchamps circuits, was “too early” in his young career.
“But you’re young, you’re naive and you think it’s going to be easy,” Davidson, who then had an engine failure in the opening laps at Malaysia in 2005 when subbing for an ill Takuma Sato, said.
“(But) you’re judged after two races, and that was very unfortunate.”
Davidson’s car for 2007 will be a renamed and controversial development of the 2006-spec ‘RA106’, which he tested extensively for Honda last year.
GMMF1
DailyF1News.com