Davison hauls himself up to fourth.

Jim Beam Racing's Will Davison bounced back from a disastrous qualifying session to take a fantastic fourth place in the first race of the Falken Tasmania Challenge at Symmons Plains Raceway on Saturday.

Davison, who started 18th, put in a very solid performance in the wet conditions. Indeed he was able to steer clear of trouble and pick off his opponents as a change to wet tyres on lap 22 paid off and had him well and truly mixing it with the front of the field for the second half of the race.

Speaking at the finish, he said it was one of his most enjoyable races of the year, especially after his woes earlier in the day.

"We didn't have a great qualifying session, some things we tried didn't work, I had a fairly big excursion off the track which damaged the under tray of the car and a bit of a mix up with Steve [Johnson - my team-mate] held me up as well," he noted.

"It was just a misunderstanding between me and Stevie, he was trying to get out of the way while I was on a flyer and I was trying to avoid him and we chose the same path so it was just unfortunate more than anything.

"The race however was just really fun and I think I probably enjoyed myself the most I have this year out on a race track. It had a bit of everything and I was able to pull off some pretty big moves and really work my way through the field."

Johnson meanwhile was eighth in the sister DJR/Jim Beam Ford. He lost time after clashing with Craig Lowndes, which dropped him down to 19th and ruined any hope he had of capitalising on his fifth spot from qualifying.

"When I jumped out at the end of the race, you could see there was a fair bit of damage to my wheel from the contact with Lowndes so I was lucky we didn't puncture a tyre," Johnson stated. "The car was great when we needed it to be during qualifying, but we were pretty unlucky during that race and to be starting inside the ten and away from the carnage tomorrow is a great effort."