The out-lap felt different.
Not in a way Leo could measure. Not in a way the sensors on the car could capture or Elias could read from the telemetry feed. It was something underneath the data. A quality in the way the car moved beneath him as he came through Turn 1 of the installation loop — the steering lighter than it had been all session, the rear more planted, the tyres building temperature in a way that felt less like a process and more like the car waking up.
He had stopped managing the Racing Instinct before he left the garage.
