SUPERCARS pitlane reporter Riana Crehan admits she often has to show restraint amid the barrages of criticism husband Will Davison sometimes faces.
Just 16 drivers in ATCC/Supercars Championship history have accumulated more race wins than Davison’s 22, which include two triumphs in the Bathurst 1000.
He also has on 11 occasions finished a season top 10 in the championship, and has been on a podium as recently as last month.
And yet Davison, like many Supercars veterans, cops plenty of flak on social media.
“It’s a funny one, because I think Australia in general, we have got a real tall poppy issue,” Crehan said on the latest episode of the V8 Sleuth Podcast powered by Castrol.
“When you’re an underdog everyone loves you, but then the minute you get to the top or the minute you start winning we just tear you down as fast as we can.
“I think Will has probably had a bit of that. During COVID he lost his drive and it was awful and then all of a sudden he had so much support, like ‘you need to be driving, you need to be racing’.
“So you get all this support and he gets the drive at DJR, starts winning, and then it’s ‘you’re useless, you’re never going to be as good as Scott McLaughlin’, all that sort of stuff. So it’s just this constant wave of up or down.
“You see comments every now and again and some of it you would love to respond, but it’s not worth it.
“There’s people who are very angry that he has had success. There’s people that are very angry and they want him to retire. Well, why don’t you retire, mate… because maybe you’ve turned 40?
“But I think any athlete, I think any celebrity, anyone who is at the top of their game, there’s always people who are going to for some reason want to bring you back down to earth. It’s just part of it, unfortunately.”
Crehan touches on various topics in the 58-minute episode, from her experience on SAS Australia to rejoining the Supercars broadcast team.
