Scarborough UTC F1 team need £30,000 to send them to the world championships - Here's how you can help

The team, known as Unity Racing, qualified for the prestigious event after finishing second in the Lenovo F1 in Schools 2024 UK National Finals in March.

The competition is designed to mimic working for an actual Formula One team. Participants design, test and race 1/20th scale Formula One cars.

Entrants are assessed on the design process and how they have used industry-standard software and knowledge to develop the car.

The competition is multidisciplinary and includes marketing and project management portfolios, along with verbal presentations and pit displays which are graded alongside the engineering.

Speaking shortly after qualifying for the World Finals, Unity Racing's Team Manager Matiss said: “We’re absolutely ecstatic to be going through to the Aramco F1 in Schools 2024 World Finals, and we can’t thank our teachers enough for helping us to get to this point.”

The team also took the Pit Display award at the event.

The Aramco F1 in Schools World Finals will take place over 10 days in Saudi Arabia later this year and Unity Racing is now looking to raise £30,000 to cover flights, hotels, entrance fees, food, transport, team kit and car manufacture.

A GoFundMe page has been launched to help fund the once in a lifetime opportunity. A message from the team on their fundraising page read: “At the world finals, we will be one of around 70 teams competing from countries all around the globe.

“We will be representing England and more specifically our region of Yorkshire.

“So let's all band together to help drive Unity Racing, Yorkshire and England to the forefront of this competition and let's become WORLD CHAMPIONS together.”

Rob Shepherd, F1 in Schools coordinator at Scarborough UTC said: “The benefits of undertaking F1 in Schools for students is just monumental

“It's an opportunity for them to really find a passion, to really refine and hone their skills in engineering, project management, marketing, social media, even presenting and their resilience.

“It opens their eyes to skills that they didn't even know they had.”

UTC Principal Helen Dowds said: “When Ofsted came to the UTC, they were really blown away by our enrichment opportunities and F1 is very much part of that.

“They could really see the bonus, that benefit of our curriculum structure enables all learners to be part of an enrichment project but it was the enthusiasm and the passion that came through from the students about F1 that really impressed Ofsted.”

One student said: “The best part about competing F1 in schools is probably just the enjoyment of learning new things every day, the confidence that I gain by speaking to sponsors and also being able to use technology and software that you wouldn't normally get to use at such a young age.

“Using the Denford CNC router, the air trace, wind tunnel, Autodesk CFD and Flow, and these technologies that will help me in the future in industry – it's really something that I'm very proud of that I've got to learn.”

To help the team achieve their goal visit: https://www.gofundme.com/f/unity-racing-world-finals-funding