Formula One comes to UCLan

26 January 2018

Motorsport students come face-to-face with one of sport’s most iconic cars

Motorsport students were treated to a meeting with Formula 1 royalty this week at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) as Keke Rosberg’s 1982 Championship winning Williams car made an appearance in Wharf Building.

The legendary F1 car was brought into UCLan by CGA, a company that preserves and races vintage Motor Sport cars such as Rosberg’s Williams and Michael Schumacher’s Championship winning Benetton car from 1993. These races take place across the world including the iconic Nurburgring in Germany.

The visit served to educate students about the technology behind F1 cars both past and present with several aspects of late 20th Century motorsport technology still being relevant to today’s vehicles.

UCLan’s relationship with companies such as CGA is crucial to help students maximise their potential and gain extracurricular experience according to the University’s motorsport course leader Graham Calderbank.

"Motorsport is such a fast moving, highly technical industry. If you’re going to go into engineering, motorsport should be quite high up on your list."

“Relationships like this are so important. CGA have been really good, they’ve had a few students off us as placement students and graduate engineers so it’s an avenue for the students to go down,” stated Graham. “It also gives the students that window into industry, and that motivation to know there are opportunities out there.

“Motorsport is such a fast moving, highly technical industry. It’s at the forefront of engineering development with Formula One being at the top of it. If you’re going to go into engineering, motorsport should be quite high up on your list.”

Motorsport engineering course representative Colm Clarke, 20, revealed his excitement at seeing companies such as CGA visit UCLan and said that he could not recommend the University enough to potential new students.

“From talking to people who have graduated and people that have gone on placements, they all feel like they have been very well equipped during their time here so that once they graduate, they are able to get jobs,” said Colm.

“I would definitely recommend this University, not just for engineering but for other courses as well. Get down for an Open Day and see for yourself. It’s a great University, it’s got amazing facilities and it’s growing all the time.”