All on the table

David Reynolds says his Erebus Motorsport team is “looking at everything” moving forward, as it learns about the Holden Commodores it is running in 2016.

After running Mercedes Benz AMG E63s for the past three seasons, team boss Betty Klimenko made a change to represent the red lion this year and purchased Reynolds a Walkinshaw Racing Commodore.

But Reynolds isn’t taking any of the past form of the factory squad on-board – like the positive results HRT achieved in those cars in Tasmania last year.

He’s looking at the car with a fresh point of view and working with engineer Campbell Little to tune it to his liking.

“We’re looking at everything. The trick is to get the best horse,” Reynolds told v8supercars.com.

“They [WR] are on their own program and we’re on our own program. It’s interesting.”

He wasn’t comfortable in the car at first but Reynolds says they’re taking “small steps” forward.

“We’re sort of getting there – it’s going to take a while but everyone understands it and it’s really tough.

“We’ve got no one to really learn off or anything, so we’re fighting through everything ourselves … the hardest thing is consistency and continuity with people and we’re going to need that.”

Reynolds comes out of the Clipsal 500 Adelaide 11th in the Championship, highlighted by a fifth place finish in Sunday’s chaotic race.

Despite the unusual race, Reynolds takes the positives from that meeting forward, focusing on his team’s ability to make the right calls.

“When you sit down and look at it I started 21st and got up to fifth – so that’s a good result,” he said.

“But it was just a very strange race. In a way we were kind of lucky, but we were still kind of smart – we did our fuel drop … obviously the guys are quick thinking, we’re quite good on our feet.

“The car was quite fast in the wet, I was quite happy with it, it wasn’t too out of control or dangerous or anything.

“In the dry we’ve still got a little bit of pace to find.”

Last year with Prodrive Racing Reynolds was a title contender in his Ford Falcon FG X, and while his shift to Erebus Motorsport for 2016 was unexpected, he believes he’s found a good home.

“I’m really happy, it’s great. It’s really nice – relaxed, less politics, less people. “We’re going ok; we’ve still got a lot of work to do. We started this team eight weeks ago from scratch, basically – they’ve got the same name they had but everything’s completely different. Still a lot to go.”

Tasmania was an important round for Reynolds last year – the first championship event he steered the FG X and qualified on the front row alongside Craig Lowndes.

A mishap with Lowndes meant he could only finish 11th in the 200km Sunday race.

But that’s all ancient history now.

“Yeah, I got turned around … I’ve never had a podium [in Tasmania] but I was going to get my first one last year before Lowndesy crashed into me at turn one,” he said.  

“It’s different because I’m going there with a different team a different car and a different role. It’s all going to be very strange.

“In essence it’s a very simple track because it’s technically only three corners, so it can be one where you can end up further up than what you think you can be.

“I really don’t know how we’re going to go.”