Try F1 Shakedown

Shakedown; A brief test when a team is trying a different car part for the first time before going back out to drive at 100 percent to set a fast time.

Formula One is a hi-tech world with plentiful terms useful for an audience of petrolheads.

Much chatter surrounded long-time dominant force Mercedes at the only 2021 pre-season test event. Strangely alone in not doing a ‘shakedown’. For a team built on meticulous, leave-nothing-to-chance detail this astonished the watching press pack.

As some wikipedian posits, ‘most racing cars require a “shakedown” test before being used at a race meeting’.

A ‘pre-test test’, in a way.

Yet the new Mercedes W12 vehicle had a shocker.

Did The Silver Arrows really rock up without prior running?

The Sales analogy is stark.

You cannot simply hope to turn up and win.

You fail to push on, others will overtake.

Complacency a killer too.

If you are not trying something new, somewhere, anywhere, then you are doomed to go backwards.

And that fresh component really ought to have some kind of run through in the safety and privacy of your garage, ‘back in the labs’.

Then when first deployed, keep the knowledge prominent that first-run success can (will, even) prove elusive.

Iterations will be required.

Yet perseverance will reward.

Who’s helping you with your selling shakedown?