Will Davison proud to deliver Phil Munday his first Supercars podium

Will Davison says his first top three with 23Red racing has been special despite team owner Phil Munday being absent for his team’s maiden visit to the podium.

Munday split away from Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport at the end of 2017 and purchased their REC ahead of 2018, starting a single car operation as Davison moved from Tekno Autosports to join the team.

A big change occurred in the off-season between 2018 and 2019 as Munday’s team moved under the Tickford Racing banner, joining the 2015 series champions in running out of their fourth garage space.

Speaking after the team’s maiden podium, Davison says he and Munday talked about the possibility of a podium being on the cards when the team owner wouldn’t be attending the round.

“He (Munday) actually joked about it last night or the night before that I’ll get this podium when he’s not here and I didn’t want to hear it or put the mockers on myself,” Davison said.

“Obviously the weekend has been great, we haven’t been out of the top three in any session including qualifying and the race today. I’m devastated he’s not here to be honest but he was there in spirit; he’s got the family there and they were all watching.

“He’s a great addition to this pit lane, he’s a cool guy to work for and he’s invested a lot; we did our own thing last year and made a massive move (to Tickford) in a short period of time to give me an opportunity to get results so I’m really appreciative.”

As the season has been dominated by Scott McLaughlin and his DJR Team Penske squad, podium results have been hard to come by for anyone which Davison said made the result even sweeter.

“It honestly does mean a lot, as I said to him on the phone I promise I won’t be this happy with second next time,” he said.

“In this day and age in the category at the moment, it’s brutal; it’s impressively tough and I’m trying to do my bit for him because he’s made a big commitment, big investment so I’m really proud to deliver this for him.

“The year’s going well, I’m really enjoying my racing so we’ll press on now, we don’t have to talk about that first podium so we’ll just fight on.”

Davison and the 23Red Racing team will looking to go one better tomorrow as they fight for a maiden win after showing great form over the weekend so far, finally putting themselves in a position to fight at the front.