Anthony Davidson is taking the positives from his Turkey race despite a first-corner incident that compromised his entire day and came close to costing him the finish.
The incident on lap one, involving both Davidson and Super Aguri team-mate Takuma Sato, centered around a major fold-up in the midfield.
Red Bull’s David Coulthard took the opportunity to leg it off down the track and gain several places while Renault’s Giancarlo Fisichella and Toyota’s Jarno Trulli collided, causing Trulli to spin.
The two Super Aguri drivers were losers in this meleé, with Sato going backwards and a fair bit of hardware knocked off Davidson’s car after his evasive action sent him off the track.
Davidson said, post-race: “It was a good start but then I got sandwiched going into turn one between Coulthard and Fisichella.
“Fisichella and Trulli touched, Trulli spun and I had to go on the outside of him off the track and when I rejoined I touched another car and damaged my front end, which definitely affected the balance of my car.
“It was a tough race from there on really. We had a good strategy, we got ahead of the Toro Rosso, which was who I was fighting with all race, so it is a shame to have had a bit of contact at the start.
“After that, it was a good clean race and it felt good to finish another Grand Prix.”
But, despite those first-lap troubles, he managed to bring the car home 14th, four places ahead of Sato, and to achieve a fastest lap time of 1:29.658 on lap 38.
It’s been a dramatic few weeks for Super Aguri, with legal action against a non-paying sponsor in the works, new sponsorship deals on the horizon and the team already being feted as one of the surprise success stories of the season.
Team principal Aguri Suzuki said after the race: “It was quite a tough race with the majority of the field crossing the finish line.
“The first corner incident with Trulli meant that Anthony had to run wide and he then touched another car, whilst Taku had to almost stop to avoid collision in the traffic.
“Because of this, Anthony suffered a problem with his SA07 which affected his lap times for the whole of the race.
“On the positive side, we achieved another two-car finish and the team and drivers did a good job today.”