Reynard Shakedown – Mallory Park, 19th March

Coming into the first shakedown it was critical that I prepared properly. Even before the day began, I had already driven the lap countless times in my head, visualising the track, the lines and how the car might behave.

I kept asking myself how it would feel — how the car would react under load and how it would behave through the corners.

I remember sitting in the car, tightly strapped in, only minutes away from heading out. It was a feeling I hadn’t experienced before. There was an added sense of responsibility, but also pride.

This car wasn’t just built for me by the team — it was built with me as part of the team.

Now I had the responsibility of taking it out on track for the first time.

The opening laps were steady. This wasn’t about lap times. It was about understanding the car, letting everything settle and making sure everything was as it should be.

My focus was on how the car felt:

• the braking

• the balance through the corners

• any signs of issues

  
  

I was listening to the car, paying attention to the sensations coming through the contact points and understanding how it responded.

The second session followed a similar pattern, but something began to change.

Instead of reacting to the car, I started to anticipate it.

I could predict how it would behave in corners and under braking. The process moved from simply learning the car to beginning to understand how it responded to different inputs.

It started to feel less like I was driving the car, and more like we were working together — almost like a conversation.

As the sessions continued, that connection developed further.

I no longer felt like a driver sitting in a car, but part of it. I could feel what the car was doing over bumps, under load and through the corners.

That allowed us to begin making small setup changes, particularly to the suspension, and then go back out to understand how those changes affected the car’s behaviour.

It felt like the start of something — each run uncovering another layer of understanding.

We did have a few issues to work through. The braking wasn’t quite where we wanted it, and at higher speeds the car had more movement than expected. Later, during the strip down, we discovered that brand new bearings had failed.

Even so, by the end of the day I felt a real sense of relief.

Not just because the car had stayed in one piece, but because we had built something special.

It felt like the beginning of a genuine connection between me and the car — one that will continue to develop as we move forward.