Meet the Davanti Tyres Race Team

Davanti enters a new motorsports era with the launch of the Davanti Tyres Race Team, set to compete in the inaugural 2025 Swift Sport Challenge. Our Davanti Tyres Race Team drivers, professional racer Adam Blair and Ray Collier, chief engineer at TREAD Ltd, are ready to put the Davanti Protoura Race tyre to the test in this live competition. Ahead of the season, we caught up with them to discuss their excitement for the series, the Protoura Race’s real-world performance, and their advice for aspiring club racers.

Ray & Adam, welcome to the Davanti Tyres Race Team! Can you introduce yourselves and tell us about your backgrounds and careers to date?

Ray: I’m Ray Collier, Director and Chief Engineer of TREAD Ltd, specialising in vehicle and tyre development around the world. I am a degree-qualified engineer but also a keen club racer. I have competed in the XR Challenge, The MGCC Cockshoot Cup, The CSCC RX8 Challenge and the CSCC Slicks Series.

Adam: And I’m Adam Blair. When I was a kid, I was incredibly ambitious, and luckily racing was one of the few things I was any good at! I turned pro in 2001, racing in the Porsche Carrera Cup in Germany, but ultimately aiming for Formula 1. I had promising meetings with some F1 teams, but without financial backing there was always another driver ahead of me for a seat. I quit racing disillusioned in 2003 but rediscovered my passion in 2016 after a charity karting event. We won and of course, I was immediately hooked again! I raced karts for a few years and then moved on to the EnduroKA in 2019.

This race season marks the official debut of both the Swift Sport Challenge and the Davanti Race Team. How does it feel to take part in the inaugural season representing Davanti?

Adam: I’m flattered to be chosen. From the initial test day at Donington, there is a great vibe around the championship. I’m looking forward to racing and helping drivers who are new to racing get up to speed.

Ray: Representing Davanti on the Protoura Race tyre, which I helped develop, is a very unique opportunity. As the person responsible for the sign off performance of the tyre, experiencing how it performs in a competitive racing environment is an exciting challenge.

Can you tell us a little more about the Swift Sport Challenge and what attracted you to take part?

Ray: The 750 Motor Club only introduced the series this year and it appears to have the fastest-ever uptake. With Davanti as the control tyre, and strict regulations to ensure a level playing field, it looks to be a very welcoming racing environment for novice and experienced drivers alike. We wanted to be able to assist the competitors firsthand, and there is no better way to do that than by being in the championship ourselves.

Adam: I’ve always thought it’s more of a challenge to be really fast in a lower-powered car – you can’t use the power and grip to cover any mistakes. The Swift Sport is a really fun car to drive and it’s great to be partnered with Ray. We both have quite different car setup approaches and driving styles, so I think we can learn from each other.

What are you most looking forward to about racing in this championship?

Adam: Working with the team to make the car as fast as possible and helping newer drivers get up to speed. We plan to be open with our car setups to help newer drivers to make this series as accessible as possible.

Ray: During the pre-season trackday, we shared our vehicle setup and valuable items like tyre pressures with all the competitors. This has never been done before, but it’s more rewarding to me to see newcomers make their first steps in a racing career with Davanti. Helping novice drivers to enjoy the experience by removing the unknowns is more rewarding to us than winning a trophy.

Now this season is not just about the racing of course – you’re going to be pushing the new Protoura Race tyre to its limits. What sets this tyre apart, and what can drivers expect from its performance?

Ray: Protoura Race was engineered to deliver “Race Craft”. By this, I mean that the tyre allows the driver to focus on racing. We ensured the tyre works well from cold and stabilises at race temperatures quickly. The breakaway character is gentle and progressive with good feedback, so drivers can trust the tyre throughout and enjoy the race.

Adam: The biggest thing I’ve noticed is that it’s extremely consistent from cold. I’ve raced on many different tyres and some of their performances degrade after a few laps and easily overheat. Protoura Race is the opposite of this. It’s extremely durable (which helps keep racing costs down) and it maintains performance over time. It’s also extremely predictable and you never find the car “snaps” away from you. I know the team spent a lot of time developing the tyre, and I have to say, they’ve done an amazing job.

Ray, you were heavily involved in the development and testing process of Protoura Race at some of Europe’s toughest proving grounds. How did that process shape the final product, and what makes it engineered to win?

Ray: The testing and development focused on safe, consistent and positive feeling – when the driver trusts the tyre and it gives a consistent level of performance, they can then focus on their driving and race craft – looking at alternative corner lines and braking points to gain an advantage to then exploit and win. If you don’t trust the tyre as a driver, or you are focused more on simply controlling the car due to poor grip, you can’t do this. We benchmarked a number of race tyres during development and ensured Protoura Race exceeded their performance for the duration of the race.

This will be the first time Protoura Race will be used in a live championship. How valuable will this real-world testing in a competitive environment be?

Adam: The tyre is well tested, but Davanti is very interested in incremental progress. I think Protoura Race is already slightly ahead of its main competitor and I think being used by all cars in the championship will give Davanti the data needed to increase the gap even further over time.

Ray: We are confident the development process is robust, so I’m really looking for confirmation from other drivers and I will get this when I see them smiling at the end of each race.

How crucial is the tyres’ performance to the overall success of a race?

Adam: Very. I have a personal recent experience of a major tyre brand having batch inconsistencies of up to 1 second/lap, which was extremely surprising! From our testing, Protoura Race is reliable and consistent, which is essential for a fair championship.

Ray: If the series had chosen a substandard tyre with poor grip or an undesirable breakaway character, it would have ruined the racing for everyone. I’m pleased Protoura Race was selected by an independent testing panel because this shows it does have the attributes racing drivers want in a tyre.

What kind of performance data are you and the team looking at after each session? How does this influence your approach for the next race?

Adam: For me, it’s all about feel, and of course lap time. For Ray, being an engineer, is much more data-driven. I think the combination makes us a good team. I can explain what the car is doing qualitatively, and Ray can translate that into quantitative data.

Ray: Since data logging isn’t allowed, we will rely on lap times and driver feedback. The team is going to share set-up data to help others improve, because as Davanti ambassadors, we’re here to help others on their racing journey. As the season progresses, we will begin to understand the cars’ responses better and make some subtle improvements in setup, but each track is quite different.

You’ve both just taken part in the pre-season testing day at Donington Park, the cars are looking great! What were you specifically looking for in the cars and the Protoura Race tyres, and how did they perform on the track?

Ray: We set up one car to be neutral and gentle for novice drivers to experience how to handle a race car and develop their car control skills, and the other to be more demanding and allow more driver controlling inputs to position the car on the track. Because Protoura Race has been engineered to work on all types of car and conditions, it suited the Suzuki very well and allowed the drivers to concentrate on learning the track and hone their racing skills. I spent quite a lot of the day giving passenger laps to explain vehicle dynamics and the tyre response, it was very rewarding to show how a properly tested and developed tyre works and allowed many young novice drivers to understand, experience and enjoy racing.

Adam: The tyres are fantastic for testing because they are so consistent. We made a lot of setup changes on the #11 car and arrived at a setup that I absolutely love. I like a car that is extremely nervous and responsive to throttle and brake inputs so that I can get the fastest possible rotation. Ray, being an engineer, likes stability and ultimate grip. We proved that you can set the car up in both ways and that there is very little difference in lap time between the two approaches.

Which race weekend are you most looking forward to in the season?

Adam: The next one!

Ray: I think i’m looking forward to the “park circuits” like Cadwell, they are the more driver-involving tracks and will suit the little Swifts and Davanti Tyres more than the typical power circuits of Silverstone.

What results are you hoping for in the series?

Ray: For me, the result I want to see is the enjoyment of others, I hope that this is the first step many novice drivers take into motorsport, and to see they are doing that with the tyre I helped develop is rewarding enough. I have a garage full of trophies and laurels I really don’t need anymore!

Adam: I think the competition at the front is going to be high based on the testing at Donington, so we go into the first race with hope, but no expectation of results. As part of the Davanti Race Team, I think it’s important that we are open and transparent with other teams and drivers about our setup. I’m genuinely looking forward to helping newer drivers get up to speed and get the most out of the tyres.

If you had the opportunity to race on any track in the world, where would it be and why?

Adam: Probably the Nordschleife in Germany. I’ve only done a few laps around there in road cars, but it’s an incredible circuit.

Ray: There are two circuits I would like to race, Spa Francochamps in Belgium is an iconic circuit where I have never managed to race, it looks very demanding and I like the challenge the circuit puts to the driver and machine to master. The second I have raced on, which is Goodwood, but I would like to compete in the Goodwood Revival. I love the atmosphere of the event, and for me, motorsport is not only about the racing, it’s about the people you meet and share experiences with.

What advice do you have for novices looking to try out grassroots club racing?

Ray: 1 – The race is never won at the first corner it is only lost – so don’t go headfirst into a melee trying to overtake from the start. 2 – If you don’t know something – ASK, everyone was a novice once, so they are happy to help. 3 – Don’t overestimate your own ability, it’s better to make small steps to a consistent improvement of driving skills than make a giant leap into incompetence. Skill comes with experience, so don’t be disheartened when you start, it takes hours to build skills and no one ever stops improving on their driving ability.

Adam: It’s important to pick the right series or championship, I think a lot of people new to racing think “more power is better”. However, my experience is that a) you learn a lot more in a less powerful car because its harder to get the ultimate performance from it; b) multi class racing tends to be very expensive, in large part due to the tyres; c) single make championships with heavily controlled regulations tend to attract the best drivers and so generally offer more opportunities to test your mettle.

Stay tuned to the Davanti social media channels and news page onsite for further motorsport and partnership updates.