WILL Davison heads into Saturday’s action at Albert Park “feeling a lot more confident” after recording Dick Johnson Racing’s first top-five finish of the season.
Amid a challenging run for the Shell V-Power backed squad, Davison converted eighth on the grid into fifth place in the Friday afternoon race.
That followed 16th, 10th and 14th place runs across the opening three races of the year – two at Bathurst and Thursday at Albert Park.
Davison’s breakthrough result came in the 550th race of the out-of-contract veteran’s Repco Supercars Championship career.
“Much better day, starting eighth based on (Thursday’s) qualifying, but the important thing was that we made the car a lot nicer,” he said.
“Straight away from the first lap, I knew that the car was more balanced than (Thursday), which is always good to take some steps forward overnight and be in the hunt there.
“There were a few times I thought we might’ve been on for a podium, but I was also trying to manage the race as best as I could.
“Overall happy but a bit disappointed we couldn’t get a podium, but obviously a good step forward and leaves us feeling a lot more confident heading into the next few days.”
Davison had regular race engineer Richard Harris back at the track on Friday, having earlier been hospitalised with a stomach bug.
Their Friday result was a stark contrast to the fortune of teammate Anton De Pasquale, who retired with steering damage after opening lap contact with Matt Payne.
De Pasquale had earlier qualified on the front-row for Race 1 before fading to seventh at the chequered flag.
Davison and De Pasquale sit 12th and 20th in the championship after four races respectively.
