View source for Lee Davidson

{{Infobox FC driver
| Name            = {{flagicon|ENG}} Lee Davidson
| Logo            = [[File:Filmcard2 001.JPG|200px]]
| Nationality     = {{flagicon|UK}} British
| Years           = 2012
| Team(s)         = [[Midnight Motorsports]]
| Races           = 8
| Championships   = 0
| Wins            = 0
| Podiums         = 0
| Poles           = 0
| Fastest laps    = 0
| First race      = 2012 Formula Challenge British Grand Prix
| First win       = 0
| Last win        = N/A
| Last race       = 2012 Formula Challenge Slovenian Grand Prix
| Last season     = 2012
}}

'''Lee Davidson''' (Born 06/07/1989) is an English driver in the [[GPVWC]] and currently drives the number 2 entry for [[Measuric Racing]] in the Winter GT Series. 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.

== 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 3000 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 ====

([[:Template:F1 driver results legend 2|key]]) (Races in '''bold''' indicate pole position, races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

{| class="wikitable" border="1" style="text-align:center; font-size:90%;"
! Year
! Team
! Chassis
! Engine
! 1
! 2
! 3
! 4
! 5
! 6
! 7
! 8
! 9
! 10
! 11
! 12
! 13
! 14
! 15
! WDC
! Points
|-
|[[2012 Formula Challenge season|2012]]
! [[Midnight Motorsports]]
|'''???'''
|'''BMW'''
|bgcolor="#cfcfff"|GBR
<small>Ret-16</small>
|bgcolor="#dfffdf"|NED
<small>19-15</small>
|bgcolor="#dfffdf"|ITA
<small>12-12</small>
|bgcolor="#cfcfff"|SLO
<small>Ret-Ret</small>
|bgcolor="#FFFFFF"|MAL
<small>DNS</small>
|bgcolor="#FFFFFF"|JAP
<small>DNS</small>
|bgcolor="#FFFFFF"|AUS
<small>DNS</small>
|bgcolor="#FFFFFF"|BRA
<small>DNS</small>
|bgcolor="#FFFFFF"|MEX
<small>DNS</small>
|bgcolor="#FFFFFF"|USA
<small>DNS</small>
|bgcolor="#FFFFFF"|RSA
<small>DNS</small>
|bgcolor="#FFFFFF"|IRI
<small>DNS</small>
|bgcolor="#FFFFFF"|FRA
<small>DNS</small>
|bgcolor="#FFFFFF"|SPA
<small>DNS</small>
|bgcolor="#FFFFFF"|POR
<small>DNS</small>
|bgcolor="#FFFFFF"|'''T52'''
|bgcolor="#FFFFFF"|'''9'''
|}
{{sup|†}} Driver did not finish the Grand Prix, but was classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.

====Winter GT Series====

([[:Template:F1 driver results legend 2|key]]) (Races in '''bold''' indicate pole position, races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

''(Season in Progress)''

{| class="wikitable" border="1" style="text-align:center; font-size:90%;"
! Year
! Team
! Chassis
! Engine
! 1
! 2
! 3
! 4
! WDC
! Points
|-
|[[2012 WinterGT season|2012]]
! [[Measuric Racing]]
|'''BMW Z4'''
|'''BMW'''
|bgcolor="#cfcfff"|BRA
<small>22</small>
|bgcolor="#cfcfff"|BEL
<small>RET</small>
|bgcolor="#cfcfff"|JPN
<small>RET</small>
|bgcolor="#FFFFFF"|USA
<small>DNS</small>
|bgcolor="#FFFFFF"|'''22'''
|bgcolor="#FFFFFF"|'''0'''
|}
{{sup|†}} Driver did not finish the race, but was classified as they completed over 75% of the race distance.

==External links== 
* http://www.twitter.com/_leedavidson ''(Lee's Twitter Profile)''
* http://www.twitter.com/_epicracing ''(Epic Racing's Twitter Profile)''
* http://www.leedavidson.tumblr.com ''(Lee's Tumblr Profile)''
* http://www.flickr.com/photos/leedavidson1/ ''(Lee's Flickr Profile)''

[[Category:Drivers|Davidson]]
[[Category:Lee Davidson]]