No hard feelings after Bathurst: Davison

There are no hard feelings with best mate Jamie Whincup in the fallout over the Bathurst 1000 controversy, Will Davison insists.

But it seems the same can’t be said about Whincup’s Red Bull Racing (RBR) team boss Roland Dane.

Holden’s Davison admitted he looked forward to officially celebrating his Bathurst 1000 win after this weekend’s Gold Coast 600, almost two weeks after the Great Race.

RBR launched an appeal after Whincup crossed the Bathurst finish line first, only to be relegated to 11th due to a time penalty for his role in a late incident that took out Volvo’s Scott McLaughlin and Holden’s Garth Tander.

Davison had no problem with old friend Whincup contesting the penalty despite not being able to officially celebrate his second Bathurst win until RBR’s protest was dismissed on Tuesday night – 10 days after the race finish.

However, Davison hinted that he may not feel the same about RBR boss Dane.

Davison revealed Dane rang him after RBR launched their appeal against Whincup’s penalty, telling him: “changing the race result was the last thing he wanted to do”.

“He said he didn’t want to take away the result but I don’t think it meant he wasn’t trying to,” Davison told AAP.

“But it is a cut throat industry and always will be.

“But I was always confident that we were safe.”

Davison has been best mates with Whincup since their junior go kart days and they stay in close contact on the Gold Coast where they are both based.

Davison said nothing had changed despite RBR’s appeal earning the ire of critics, including Supercars boss James Warburton who described it as “un-Australian”.

“It was an awkward situation for everyone,” he said.

“But Jamie and I didn’t have issues with each other because I wasn’t personally involved in the incident.

“There are no hard feelings. Everyone did what they had to do rightly or wrongly.”

Davison said his only regret was that his team could not have officially popped the champagne over Bathurst earlier.

“I wish our boys were able to enjoy it a bit more the last week,” he said.

“But it doesn’t mean we won’t enjoy it when we get a bit of time off soon.”

Davison was confident that the RBR appeal would fail but reckoned he had plenty up his sleeve if the worst case scenario arose.

“I didn’t want it to go any further but I wasn’t concerned,” he said.

“But we knew some facts. I didn’t try and race Jamie in the final laps after he got that time penalty.

“We knew he wasn’t in the race with 11 laps to go so I purposely didn’t challenge him.

“We kept our mouths shut and it all worked out.”

Meanwhile, series leader Shane van Gisbergen was fastest (one minute, 10.42 seconds) in Friday’s practice ahead of this weekend’s two 300km races.

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