Leeds Schools Win At Silverstone. Pete Thurlow, Area Manager South, sent me this update...

"Whilst British racing drivers lead the way in F1, Leeds drivers win at Silverstone! Bruntcliffe High School and Woodkirk High School were the first Leeds schools to participate in the national ‘Formula Schools’ design engineering competition held last week at the Northamptonshire circuit- and they came away with trophies.

In partnership with South Leeds City Learning Centre, Y10 students from the two schools have been working for the last two months to design, test and build scale radio controlled cars for the competition. They have had to run design competitions in school, attract sponsors from local businesses, pass pre-race scrutineering and prepare for the race with specialist manufacturing techniques, mirroring the requirements of real F1 teams. This all culminated in a tense race day last Thursday where the Leeds ‘rookies’ were up against experienced teams from all over the country.

Both Bruntcliffe and Woodkirk won in different categories. Woodkirk benefited from safe, reliable driving to win the second of their two heats. Bruntcliffe’s success was through their engineering and communication skills, taking the pit display prize and the body/aerodynamics trophy- the latter being sponsored and presented by Williams F1. Both teams succeeded beyond expectation, working to achieve for themselves as schools but also representing Leeds as a city- a big feature of the day was the mutual support and shared resources between the teams."

Well done to everyone involved for a brilliant project which once again has put Leeds on the map. Pet says that we’ll be back next year and that hopefully he’ll take a few more schools!
Chris