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Aussie students win miniature F1 contest in Malaysia

A team of Australian high school students has beaten teams from 27 countries in a competition to create a miniature Formula 1 car. The competition is part of the F1 in Schools program, and involved 50 teams.


The team, dubbed ‘Hyperdrive’, was made up of four students from Melbourne's Trinity Grammar, and received support from Swinburne University.

Hyperdrive started working on the car in 2015, and was responsible for designing, engineering and manufacturing it, before racing it at Sepang International Circuit in Kuala Lumpur.

Swinburne PhD students oversaw the project, offering technical and engineering support, along with access to the necessary university facilities.

The competition was run over three days, and involved cars being fired down a 20-metre stretch of track. Team Hyperdrive completed the course in less than one second – faster than the other 49 entries could manage. The team also won an award for 'best engineered' car.

“Our greatest achievement is becoming World Champions, against millions of students globally,” said Hugh Bowman, student and team manager.

“Continuous aerodynamic refinement and evolution was key to our development strategy to minimise drag and create efficiency.”

As winners, every member of Team Hyperdrive has been offered a scholarship to City University of London and the University College of London.

Although there’s no official mention in the press release, we can only assume McLaren has reached out to Hyperdrive for tips on how to improve its actual F1 car, too. Maybe that'll be enough to make Fernando Alonso stay for 2018.

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