Olympic
rower joins
Fisher for
rapid ride

Reed, who achieved success in the coxless fours event in the London 2012 Olympics, joined Fisher - a wildcard for the FIA Super 2000 World Rally Championship in Wales - for a run over the 3.91-kilometre gravel stage at the Walters Arena complex north of the event base in Cardiff.

“It was an amazing experience, unbelievable,” said Reed. “Alastair was a fascinating chap and is obviously very talented and loves what he does. His reactions were razor sharp and the accelerating and braking were something else. I didn’t let out any yelps but my body was completely rigid and I think I nearly broke his poor co-driver’s seat - certainly I was pushing down very hard on the footrest.”

Fisher, a 24-year-old rising star from Northern Ireland, said: “It was great for me to have somebody like Pete in the car, a real honour. He was quite a big guy, but we managed to get him in. He'd never been in a rally car before, so it was something completely new for him. I'm not sure he knew what to expect - he thought we were already on the stage when we were just getting up to the start line. But when we got to the end, he seemed to think it was pretty awesome.”

Reed was a guest of M-Sport, the company responsible for building and running Fisher and co-driver Daniel Barritt’s Ford Fiesta S2000 on Rally GB, which gets underway with the first of 19 stages on Friday morning.