Each participating team of three to six students designs and builds miniature cars that compete against cars made by other teams. Like a real Formula 1 race, the competition itself lasts only a few seconds and computers time the cars and the reaction time of the drivers from the moment of their launch to the moment they cross the finish line. 

Just like Formula 1, Formula 1 in Schools cars must adhere to strict guidelines -- 21 pages of specifications, to be exact. Racing a car is just a small part of the weeklong F1 Schools competition. Mercury Racing designed their car using Fusion 360 a professional-level 3D design CAD program and ran their car through a virtual wind tunnel. After virtually testing their car, they sent the files to London to be cut because they could not find suitable equipment in Rome. Once the final car was assembled, the students airbrushed the car themselves. But the preparations didn’t stop there.

Student participants are also in charge of their own marketing and fundraising. To prepare for this competition, Mercury Racing, made up of Tommaso, Marco and Valerio, 12th, 11th, and 10th graders respectively, created a website, several social media accounts, and uniforms. The team had extra organizational and development support in Rome from Nadya, a 10th grader, and Dialta, a senior. In the months leading up to the World Finals, they cold-called long lists of potential sponsors and wrote lengthy engineering and enterprise portfolios. Finding sponsors proved to be their biggest problem, primarily because there is no tax deduction for charitable donations in Italy. Tommaso, the Team Manager, recalls that, after participating in the F1 in Schools regional competition in London two years ago, the team began preparing to compete in Singapore in 2019 but had to abandon their plans when they ran out of funding. This financial setback only made Tommaso more determined to compete at the World Finals this November; in Tommaso’s words, “every since the London regionals, I’ve wanted to represent Italy at the World Finals.”

Despite the challenges, out of fifty-four teams, Mercury Racing was the only new team nominated for an award, finishing as the first of three nominees for the Judge’s Award. The judges were particularly impressed with the team’s commitment to sustainability. While many teams ship materials from all over the world, the St. Stephen’s Team brought their equipment in their suitcases and threw nothing away, choosing to keep and recycle everything they brought with them. 

To participate in the World Finals, the teams have to bring an extraordinary amount of equipment including all the trappings for their professional pit displays which feature videos and team swag such as logoed pencils, mugs, and t-shirts, as well as an 11 page long enterprise portfolio with marketing information, media, and the team’s logo which last year’s St. Stephen’s team designed for the 2018 F1 Schools London regional competition where they won the Judges Award. 

Mercury Racing had never tested their car before they arrived on Yas Island, home to Abu Dhabi’s F1 race track and Ferrari World which boasts the fastest roller coaster in the world. The F1 in Schools World Finals are always held at an F1 racetrack and coincide with a Formula 1 event.  

 Mercury Racing arrived in Abu Dhabi on Friday and registered several copies of their car along with copies of spare tires and the front and rear wings, which they had 3D printed in the St. Stephen’s iLab. These are the only spare parts they are allowed to use to repair any car damage during a race. The cars are scrutineered for specification penalties and for safety, and repairs must be done in front of a judge with only the supplies on hand in a limited time. At one point, the car of a team from Mexico disintegrated during a race against Mercury Racing, so the team gave them a tube of instant super glue. It took the entire tube to put the car back together so they could race in the next heat. They competed on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. On Tuesday, they received feedback from the judges. The team had to present their car and design process over and over again (five times, to be exact) and they interviewed multiple times in formal and informal settings. In the evening, the St. Stephen’s team dined at the house of former Dean of Students/Learning Center Director/Art Teacher, and beloved boarding faculty member, Fiona Stewart and her family. On Wednesday, the teams had the morning off while the judges tallied their votes, so Mercury Racing and several other teams enjoyed Ferrari World, examining historic F1 cars and a few roller coasters as well. In the late afternoon, 13 charter buses filled with students, coaches, and judges circled the Yas Marina Circuit where the real F1 races would begin the next day. The awards dinner that evening was held on the F1 circuit itself, and the student teams were joined by F1 drivers, mechanics, and other F1 celebrities. The First Place was handed out by Nico Rosberg himself, the most celebrated driver in recent F1 history. The winning team, Evolve from the UK, had been working together since 2016! The judges were stunned that the St. Stephen’s team (represented in Abu Dhabi by Tommaso and Valerio, making them the only two-man team at the competition due to Marco’s illness) had managed to pull together in four months what most teams accomplish in two or three years. 

The next morning, the students were able to tour the F1 pit stops and watch the crews prepare the cars for the next day’s races. Mercury Racing even had the opportunity to meet Charles LeClerc who took third in the Formula 1 World Finals for Ferrari. On Friday, the teams were offered discounted tickets which provided them exclusive access to the center of the Formula 1 circuit while the drivers ran practice laps. For Valerio, this was one of the week’s highlights; in his words, “watching the "Free Practice" live, as well as the pitlane walk the prior day: they were both once-in-a-lifetime, unique experiences which gave us a much more personal look at the world of Formula 1, from the teams to the races themselves.” Later that evening, the group visited Abu Dhabi’s stunning Grand Mosque before boarding a 3 am flight back to Rome. 

Rather than being discouraged by the challenges of creating Italy’s first F1 team, Valerio, Tommaso, and Marco were excited by the opportunity. According to Valerio,  the team’s lead engineer and resource manager, “I wanted to participate in the competition because it was a completely new experience, based on something I wanted to explore --engineering -- but didn’t have the time or the resources to explore… The Mercury Racing team, for the World Finals, was officially created in July of this year, which only really left us four months to do everything: from branding to engineering to our social media. This meant that we utilized a great deal of project management to finish in time, while also gaining experience and familiarity with new software in every conceivable field: from design to aerodynamics to graphics. I had worked on similar-ish projects before, namely the RoboMed robotics competition, but this was a completely different and more intensive spin on every aspect of that, and I'm glad we managed to make it in such a short time.” 

The team’s coach, Elizabeth Di Cataldo is Director of the Library, Educational Technology, and the iLab at St. Stephen’s School and was recently named a Google Education Innovator, one of only two in Italy, joining a group of 2,200 Google Education Innovators worldwide. As the In-Country Coordinator for Italy, Ms. Di Cataldo can select up to three Italian teams to send to the F1 in Schools Worlds Competition. At the moment, St. Stephen’s is the only Italian F1 School participant, but Ms. Di Cataldo hopes that the team’s success in Abu Dhabi will inspire other Italian teams to join them next year. According to Ms. Di Cataldo, “I really love this full STEM challenge because it doesn’t just cover science, technology, engineering, and math but also requires environmental and economic skills and public speaking, social media, and marketing expertise. We hope that by bringing the F1 challenge to Italy that other students will have this wonderful opportunity to expand their interests in such an enriched program. F1 in Schools is an incredibly well-run challenge globally thanks to the many adults who volunteer their time as judges, administrators and coaches, and the kids are incredibly enthusiastic.”

Looking ahead, Ms. Di Cataldo hopes to repeat a trip she led just a couple of years ago to Maranello, where St. Stephen’s students had the opportunity to attend a special workshop at the Ferrari museum which has expressed interest in supporting F1 in Schools in Italy. Ms. Di Cataldo looks forward to continuing to grow the F1 program at St. Stephen’s, providing students with a unique opportunity to explore and expand their skills in STEM, design, public speaking, and presentation.

"Andrew Denford Bio ." The Design and Technology Association, www.data.org.uk/for-partners/our-ambassadors/design-and-technology-ambassadors/andrew-denford-founder-and-chairman-f1-in-schools/. Accessed 7 Dec. 2019.