Davidson ready to forget '16 Le Mans heartbreak

Toyota's Anthony Davidson relied heavily on his sense of humor after experiencing last year's heartbreaking loss at Le Mans. Three minutes shy of earning the Japanese brand's first victory at the vaunted 24-hour endurance race, a quest to win on Toyota's 18th attempt – dating back to 1985 – was undone on the final lap by a faulty clamp within the engine bay.

Four decades of trying, a single lap from glory, spoiled by a stupid little clamp connecting the turbochargers to an intercooler. It was enough to steer Davidson, his teammates and all those within the Toyota Racing organization into a collective depression. That's where the Briton's positive disposition proved invaluable during the weeks and months that went by after Porsche was handed the win.

"I tell you what, if I had to choose one scenario from the 2015 season or the 2016 season and, knowing what happened at the end, I would still go for the 2016 season," Davidson told RACER. The 2015 Le Mans edition, as he noted, found the Toyota TS040 Hybrid chassis in a hopelessly uncompetitive state against Audi and Porsche.

On its Le Mans debut last year, the brand-new TS050 Hybrid was a missile that had Porsche's 919 Hybrids ready to settle for second until fate rewrote the script on the last lap. In Davidson's estimation, it's easier to purge the lingering feelings from a dramatic loss than to accept being uncompetitive for 24 straight hours.

"Yeah, because, turning up to Le Mans with a car that you just haven't got a hope in hell of winning the race for you is so soul-destroying, to go through 24 hours of disappointed, and then [Le Mans is] the highlight of your year, the one thing you've been looking forward to in racing all year, when you just know it's going to be a disappointment, and you're not going to walk away with anything unless you have a massive handful of luck, it's awful," he said.

"And, 2015 was just such a disappointing season, in terms of performance. And, I think everybody in the team felt that and I think that's why we came back stronger because we went from a season where we won everything in 2014, well not everything of course, we didn't win Le Mans, but we were winners in 2014 and we came back to 2015 with a No. 1 on the car and we just got absolutely chipped. It was horrible."

As Davidson has reconciled the experience, coming up 180 seconds short of earning his biggest achievement as a racecar driver no longer sits on his shoulders as a burdensome weight.

"We pulled ourselves together and we realized that, yeah, we got to improve and take the fight to Audi and Porsche and we did," he said. "And that's such a sweet feeling. And to go there and almost win the race in 2016, it was, just up until that last lap, we were loving it. That moment at the end of the race was obviously heartbreaking but no one can take away that feeling of how good you were feeling before it. And, I prefer to do 23 hours, 57 minutes of feeling brilliant and have it robbed at the end instead of 24 hours of absolute agony."

Even with Davidson's positive leanings, arriving at his current state of mind did take a bit of work after Le Mans 2016.

"It's strange, there at the time it was obviously unbelievable, what had happened," he admitted. "And yeah, you couldn't accept it at all, really. But they say time is a healer, it really is. And actually, now I look back at that race from last year, it, although it still, when you really want to think about it and think about the disappointments and think about the 'Oh God, it's just one more lap. We would have won, but ...'

"And, I think, all the drivers did such a great job. We really earned that victory. We deserved it. Everybody knows that and yes, if you take your mind there to the last lap, it's gutting. But, as time's gone on, it's blessed me with actually a much better feeling than I thought I would ever have about that race. I don't mind thinking about that race now."

The 2016 ordeal also taught Davidson a lesson which, as he explains, has shifted his outlook in France from optimism to a pragmatic point of view.

"I actually, in a weird way, have good feelings about it and, going into this year's race, it's definitely made me stronger, mentally stronger," he said. "I go to that race now expecting the worst and, if it's any better than that, then that's great. It's always the race that seems to bite you. But, nothing that happens this year can be as bad as last year. So, it can't be any more cruel ever again. So, in a way that makes you stronger because you know that you can go there and you can treat it like any other race and you know that you can't get hurt by it anymore."

The Toyotas have been impressively fast this year – enough so to be pegged as the favorites to win at Le Mans with its three-car assault on Porsche. But after being so tantalizingly close 12 months ago, what if it doesn't happen for Davidson this year or in the future? He has a plan.

"If I never win that race then I'm going to buy myself a Rolex, I've decided, and engrave Le Mans 2016 Winner-Le Mans: 23 hours, 57 minutes," he joked. "I felt sorry for those Porsche guys. They were struggling a bit so I did the right thing. Everyone knows who should have won. So, I'm that generous kind of guy I guess. You should have seen the smile on their faces. Heartwarming it was."