Jenson’s Journal: Reflecting on Rollout

Rollout is certainly an exciting day, but it’s also a little nerve-wracking.

The team have been developing this car for quite some time now and everything has been focused on ensuring it all comes together for this day.

You always look at the weather report before you come to Silverstone, and you see a forecast of 12C and you think it will be alright, then you arrive and it feels like it’s -12!

It's one of those special things about Silverstone, but it’s why we love it. Obviously, it’s much cooler here than at pretty much every other venue that we go to.

Bahrain is a completely different climate and with pre-season testing taking place during the day there, it will be super hot.

It’s a huge difference from the environment we ran 17 laps in at Rollout, but the team know what happens with elevated circuits and ambient temperatures.

Every year, each team up and down the grid is on a knife edge hoping everything comes together for that first day out on track with a new car.

We not only did that, but enjoyed a smooth day of running as well.

From a driver’s point of view, having experienced 17 of those days during my career, you’d see all the data beforehand, telling you what the car is supposed to be capable of doing, but until you get in it and feel it for the first time, you’re pretty nervous. And excited, of course.

Having a rollout run smoothly is a positive start to our season. Both Alex and Logan returned to the garage with smiles on their faces, which is great.

For Alex especially, it was brilliant watching him from the pit wall go straight into Turn 1 flat out on his first lap.

He's used to these rollouts and he certainly had confidence in what the car was going to do underneath him.

For Logan, what a day! The first time in his own Formula 1 car, it's such a cool thing for him to have achieved.

He knows he's got a lot of work to do, fighting against the best in the world, but he's loving the opportunity and it’s great to see talented youngsters like him coming into this sport, going up against the big guns.

I look forward to seeing the relationship between Alex, Logan and the team really blossom.

The engineers have never driven an F1 car before, so you need a strong relationship to gather a good understanding of feedback to develop the car as a team.

They will go back to Grove armed with data and see whether it correlates with the simulations.

If it doesn't quite do so, they'll be able to tweak things here and there for Pre-Season Testing and Round 1 in Bahrain.

Alex knows what he's got to do to get himself ready for that first race, whilst Logan has got to try and not put too much pressure on himself.

He should enjoy the moment, a first Grand Prix is only ever going to happen once, so it’s important to enjoy it!

My advice to Logan would be to just keep learning, be a sponge and take all the information in.

Learn as much as you can from Alex, who is not just a star driver, but also a great team player.

Bring on 2023!