Davidson impresses Head

Davidson has figured consistently among the fastest drivers in Friday's free practice throughout the season. While it has to be taken into consideration that a team's third drivers have twice as many tyres available to them as the race drivers and run slightly more revs while the race drivers conserve their engines, Davidson's performance is still hugely impressive. In Monaco especially.

Monte Carlo is generally accepted to be one of the greatest challenges for any novice F1 driver with its kerbs, camber changes and close proximity barriers ready to punish the smallest error. During the course of the day's two free practice sessions, Davidson completed 68 laps - just 10 short of a race distance - with a quick trip down the Ste Devote escape road his only minor faux pas.

"Anthony was clearly the star of the opening day," said BAR team principal David Richards.

Davidson himself said: "It's a fairly tough circuit and quite daunting for the first few laps but I was really looking forward to getting out there. It's one of those circuits that moves you as a driver and, perhaps more than any other circuit, I would really love to be driving here for the rest of the weekend."

On that subject, Davidson is clearly staking a claim as a very serious emerging British talent, while Williams is currently a British team looking at the probability of having to fill both seats next year...

"No doubt he is a very fine driver," the team's technical director Patrick Head said, "but without having the opportunity of working with him, it's difficult. There's no doubt about his speed, but our testing guys, Marc Gene and Antonio Pizzonia also produce lap times to exactly the same level and sometimes quicker than the race drivers. But, clearly, Davidson deserves consideration."