18 Oktober 2016 Von: F1 in Schools

The second day of competition at the F1 in Schools World Finals 2016 in Austin, Texas, produced plenty of exciting racing, with today’s track activity testing reaction time as well as the speed of the race car. A Hong Kong/China collaboration team, Cathay Racers, proved the quickest at this, with a time of 0.089 seconds.

16 year old Yifei Shao from The Experimental High School, Beijing, was the selected team member to ‘drive’ the car for Cathay Racers. With three team members from Hong Kong and three from China, the team only met for the first time in Austin. They practiced their reaction times throughout the day with Yifei proving to have the quickest reaction.

Yifei, Team Manager of Cathay Racers, said after the races, “I’m amazed to have been the quickest on track today, as I was trembling when it was my turn to race. Despite the fact that I made some mistakes in practice, my team decided that I was the best person to be the driver, which was a big responsibility. So I am very proud to have been the fastest on the trigger today.”

England win the Ashes race

The Ashes race, a traditional two race shoot-out between the fastest England and Australia teams was held this afternoon, with Sixth Degree from England and Infinitude from Australia taking to the track. Despite Infinitude having the fastest car of the competition so far, after a start fault in the first race and an uncharacteristically slow run in the second race, it was Sixth Degree that took the Ashes Urn home this year.

Gary Anderson, Chair of Judges said, “We felt upset for the Australian team  - the team explained to me they had a problem with their right front wheel bearing that seemed to lock up halfway a down the track. It then cleared itself and as one of their engineers said to me, thanks for allowing us to race in the Ashes as it’s made our car faster for the knockout races. They are going to be tough, it’s going to be exciting, and that’s F1 in Schools.”

The World Finals resumes tomorrow for the final day of track action, with the Knockout Racing competition, the final chance for teams to show their racing skills. The finale of the event is on Wednesday with the Awards Celebration Gala Dinner to crown the F1 in Schools World Finals 2016 World Champions.