IRWIN Racing’s Alex Davison has finished 20th in today’s opening race at Symmons Plains Raceway in Tasmania after spending two hours at the track’s medical centre suffering from a stomach virus.

The virus hit the IRWIN driver hard with Davison being put on a drip to return fluids to his system after spending the night vomiting.

Despite the illness, Davison was able to race without incident.

The IRWIN driver made a good start but was caught up in an accident when Dean Fiore spun early in the race. 

Davison was able to recover and drove strongly to improve his position. The IRWIN Ford showed impressive pace, matching lap times with the front runners throughout the race, showing it has the potential to eventually run at the pointy end of the field.

What IRWIN Racing’s Alex Davison had to say:

“I saw Dean Fiore spinning in front of me; I was trying to decide which way to go. I was just about to go right but cars were going everywhere and I just got belted from behind and turned around. There was nothing I could do at all. Once I got going the pace was good, the IRWIN Ford was much better on soft tyres than it was on hard tyres. Hopefully we can learn something off that and improve our car on hard tyres. Our speed was really competitive the whole way through the race; we were one of the quickest cars. The car was particularly good through that last corner. We had good pace, the car really looked after its tyres well, it was pretty good. If we can get it to feel like that, even though we wouldn’t have as much grip on the hard tyre, we'd be away. We've got some good data and some good information from that race to hopefully improve our hard tyre form.

“Health wise, I’ve had a pretty ordinary day. I won’t go into the gory details; let’s just say that nothing is staying down. I’ve had about two litres of saline today. The medical staff at the track have been terrific, I just hope I feel a lot better tomorrow.”

What IRWIN Racing engineer David Stuart had to say:

“The IRWIN Ford looked after its tyres really well. We made a small change between qualifying and the race that improved the car but the lap graph will tell you the story, if we can run at the front we can win a race. We are just not qualifying high enough. It must be so disappointing and devastating for Alex (Davison) to know that he has the speed to run at the front and win but can’t start there. On a track like this you are never going to win starting 25th on the grid. We have qualifying tomorrow and two more race meets after this to make it happen for next year. Alex will be working hard and we'll be working hard with Alex. Hopefully we can sort it out, qualify up the front and give IRWIN and IRWIN Racing some podium results. We’re more than capable of achieving this.”