‘This is what you don’t see in F1’: the university where future race engineers are made

With alumni in every F1 team, Oxford Brookes University’s Formula Student team is the most prestigious in the country At the Oxford Brookes Headington campus, more than 100 students are busy building the fastest, best designed race car possible for this year’s Formula Student competition. Oxford Brookes Racing (OBR) is the UK’s most prestigious Formula Student team. They’ve won more design awards than any UK university, and frequently occupy the international race’s top spots. But the stakes go beyond the competition, held every yearat Silverstone. With several alumni in every Formula One team, success there is what gets them noticed by the industry, where a handful of engineering jobs can have upwards of 10,000 applicants. “A lot of the coverage on TV is based around the drivers, but not really the actual engineers,” said Thomas Cawdery, a team manager and third year motorsports technology student. “This is what you don’t see in Formula One. The engineers who make it happen.” Their team is entirely run by students. Across their two buildings you can see scores of people hard at work – in one room they are cutting and shaping a carbon fibre chassis by hand, in