Lee Davidson

**Lee Davidson**

Formula Challenge Career
Nationality	British
Active Years	2012
Team(s)	Midnight Motorsports
Grand Prix	8
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podium finishes	0
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First Grand Prix	2012 Formula Challenge British Grand Prix

Lee Davidson (Born 06/07/1989) is an English ex-driver and current-manager of Epic Racing. Lee began his Sim Racing career with the racing simulator Live for Speed in 2006 where he competed in a summer open wheel series. He has since enjoyed a number of outings as a driver in various series on LFS, both with tin-top and single seater machines.

However, Lee is more renown for his team management, having worked in the past with the likes of Dave Carr-Smith, David Jundt, Tom Parker, James Charman, Scotty Moore and Jack Mace, Lee enjoyed a spell of managing his own team, Epic Racing. Whilst the team ultimately failed to capture any championships on LFS, it was a very welcoming and enjoyable team to drive for and has since shown up again on the browser-based game, BATracer.

After Epic Racing, Lee decided to take some time away from the simracing scene, focusing on events in his personal life. Eventually however, he was tempted back into racing after reading reports from both Jundt and Moore covering last season's Superleague and Masters championships respectively.

Racing Career

2012 - Formula Challenge

Lee soon gave his interest to race in the brand new Formula Challenge Series towards the end of 2011 and was in deep negotiations to drive for Synergetic FC under Mal McKee's management. However a contract was still not signed on the eve of the first round at Brand Hatch and so Davidson had to begin looking elsewhere, eventually settling at Midnight Motorsports, teaming up with Jack Mace who was also lined up to be Lee's team mate at Synergetic.

The inaugural Formula Challenge round held at Brands Hatch was a debut to forget for Davidson. Having qualified a solid if unspectacular 14th for the feature race, Davidson would become involved in a second lap pile up which cost him an extra pit stop to repair damage. Having fought his way back up to fifteenth, which would result in pole position for the Sprint race, Davidson then unfortunately lost control of the car through Clark bend, leaving team mate Jack Mace with no where to go but into the side of Davidson, the resulting damage was enough to see Lee retire on the spot. Following the retirement, Davidson started 21st for the Sprint race which again saw an off within the opening handful of laps, once again causing a pit stop. However, this time Lee would see the finish of the race, driving back up to 16th place, one place shy of a point from his debut weekend. Davidson was quoted after the race, saying how he "must improve" in time for round two at Assen.

The Dutch Grand Prix, held at Assen was a slight improvement for Davidson, finally scoring his first point in an action packed Sprint race where Lee would only grab fifteenth at the final turn after a multi-car collision between Ari Nieminen, James Charman and Dale Stones. Lee's pass was controversial as the game declared it as an illegal overtake and demoted Davidson to 20th, however upon reviewing replay post-race, it was decided he was avoiding a collision that caused the off-track pass and so his 15th place finish was re-instated. This was his first ever points score in Formula Challenge and GPVWC as a whole, whilst also getting Midnight Motorsports' championship tally underway. At the next round in Italy, Lee built on his points finish in the previous round with his first ever double-points finish. The first race was a particular highlight for Davidson as he was involved in a ferocious fight over 12th place with Myles Dixon which Lee would eventually win, having being passed on the final lap only to re-pass Dixon with corners to go. His top fifteen finish meant that for the sprint race, Lee would be involved in the grid reversal and lined up a career best fourth place. However a spin early on in the race meant Davidson could only replicate his 12th place finish from the feature.

Lee's final outing for Midnight was at the Slovakian Grand Prix where he endured a testing weekend, with both races ending in DNF's from accidents. After the round had concluded, Lee decided to give up his seat in light of new commitments outside of racing. Midnight would eventually fold it's Formula Challenge outfit shortly after.

In hindsight of the part-season, Davidson said "I only wish I had more resources to devote to the cause. Midnight are a fantastic outfit and I can only hope that I'll get a second chance with them one day in the future."

2012 - Winter GT Series

Lee announced that he will compete in the brand new Winter GT Series for Measuric Racing, driving their #2 BMW Z4 in all four rounds of the mini-series. The first round took place at Interlagos, Brazil where Davidson qualified 31st out of 43 runners. A decent first lap paved the way for a 22nd place finish despite having to control an overheating engine for the large majority of the hour long race. The second round took place at Spa where Davidson improved his qualifying record with a 23rd place on the grid. A chaotic first lap gave Lee a position to attack for points however a spin out of the first turn put him into the barriers, the resulting suspension damaging giving him his first DNF of the series.

Managing Career

2012 - World Sport Series

Lee has submitted his intentions to bring the Epic Racing name back to simracing via the recently announced World Sport Series that is due to commence at the end of April. It was confirmed two weeks before the start of the season that Lee's application was a success and Epic Motorsports was granted a place on the grid for the new season. Lee was able to claim the signatures of Simon Sheasby and Richard Bayes for the team's debut season, Scott Woodwiss was signed on for reserve driver duties.

Unfortunately, due to similar reasons to the ending of his Formula Challenge career, Lee also had to step down from his role mid-season.

2013 - Full Time Management

For 2013, Lee decided to hang up his sim racing boots and focus solely on the management side of GPVWC, bringing Epic Racing into a reformatted Formula Challenge series featuring a faster and more dynamic mod. Lee's first signings were rookie Andy Smith and sim racing veteran Matt Webb whom he has worked with previously during Epic's time on the sim Live For Speed.

2015 - Epic Racing's Return

Throughout 2014, Lee worked behind the scenes in order to rebuild Epic Racing following on from it's disasterous 2013 campaign. Changes included a completely new driving line up that will based primarily in European time zones, a removal of unnecessary distractions such as the team website, and a completely fresh image revolving around a more professional approach. The team secured an entry into the 2015 Formula Challenge series with Davidson again taking on the role of team manager. He managed to sign experienced drivers in Mike Schroten and Wopke Hoekstra in an all-Dutch line up, with up and comer Rob Mason on reserve duties. The team also gained entry to the 2015 World Sport Series with Mason being partnered by Tom Parker. The team made it a triple set of entries with the 2015 International Touring Cup, signing Geoffrey Fournier and Chris Shepherd to the team.

Personal Life

Lee currently lives in Banbury, Oxfordshire with his wife and two cats. He has a passion for Photography and is a regular at any Silverstone race meet, armed with his camera and a blocked nose. He is also an avid fan of Twitter, citing it as a "huge distraction from normal life", he now has over 5000 tweets..

He should also consider thanking James Charman for creating a decent layout to his wiki page for Lee to steal from, but he wont.

Racing Career Results

Formula Challenge

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Team	Chassis	Engine	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	WDC	Points
2012	Midnight Motorsports	???	BMW	GBR Ret-16	NED 19-15	ITA 12-12	SLO Ret-Ret	MAL DNS	JAP DNS	AUS DNS	BRA DNS	MEX DNS	USA DNS	RSA DNS	IRI DNS	FRA DNS	SPA DNS	POR DNS	T52	9