Young car engineers from Thornbury school ready to take on the best in drag race at regional competition

The Blue Rockets Racing team – consisting of year 11 pupils Josh Ocone, Ben Payne, Alistair White Horne and Dan Church – will face fellow teams in a 30 metre drag race at the regional round of the F1 in Schools competition, which takes place on Friday at South Devon University Technical College.

Having spent the past two years designing a race-worthy prototype, the team will have to get their car in the top three if they want to progress to the national final at Silverstone, and with the help of members of staff, Ms Nobes, Mr Bevan and Mr Turner, they look set to put on a good show.

Made of high impact polystyrene supplied by F1 in Schools, the car was designed and created using specialist software and equipment, also getting help from engineering giant Renishaw in 3D printing additional parts for the front and back wings.

As with any race car, looking the part is important, and once it was finally assembled, it was spray painted blue to make it stand out.

This proved important for the team as they also had to enlist sponsors to their cause, with a special event at The Swan in Thornbury offering a chance to demonstrate the car’s speed, as well as the other aspects of the F1 in Schools challenge, such as their pit stop display and showing the car in a virtual reality headset.

The boys, who are all 15-years-old, say they are keen to take what they have learned from the project and put it towards their future career aspirations, which include becoming engineers, mathematicians and even RAF pilots.

“This has been unforgettable and amazing experience,” said assistant team manager Ben.

“It has been really enjoyable working with my best friends on an amazing project. As a team we have worked really well together.

“We are really looking forward to the competition and have worked very hard to get to this stage, so of course we are hoping we get to nationals.”