F1 hopefuls meet Dan Ricciardo

Every year the F1 in Schools challenge involves millions of students right across the globe, each part of a team attempting to create the fastest miniature F1 car.

The cars are individually designed by the teams, propelled by CO2 cartridges and race each other on slot car-like drag strips. It's all pretty cool and involves science, technology, engineering and maths, and also encourages students to work on their business skills to find sponsors. Carsales being one of them.

Although the group of students from Brighton Grammar School may not have secured a place in the global finals, taking place in Kuala Lumpur in September 2017, they proved their worth in only their second year in the competition, coming first in the Victorian state finals.

But the real payoff was catching up with Australian F1 driver Dan Ricciardo, a meeting which has buoyed the group of teenagers to bigger and better things in the future.

The group of 14-year-old boys, Andrew Wang, Liam Konidaris, Billy Pearson, Maxim Christodoulou and Joel Tyler, was clearly pumped after catching up with one of Australia's most recognisable sports stars.

"I'm a huge Formula 1 fan, and it's really cool to meet Daniel Ricciardo," said Andrew.

"He's my idol and he drives for Australia and he's a great guy, really down to the earth, really funny. It's a shame he had to retire at the {2017 Australian] GP."

Liam added: "He seems like an awesome guy and some celebrities can be stand-offish I guess, but he was really normal and he signed tonnes of stuff for us”.

The Brighton team says they've got some innovative ideas for next season and with all the learnings they are ready to take the next step and emulate other Australian schools, such as South Australia's Brighton Secondary School, which won the world finals in 2012.

On top of the once-in-a-lifetime experiences like meeting an F1 driver, the team explained that the F1 in Schools competition allowed them not only to develop, design and race scale model cars, but also gave them experience in unexpected areas.

"When our teacher Mr Watson pitched it to us last year, he explained how many different aspects there were to the project," said Billy. "So you've got marketing, PR, industry collaboration, financial management.

"I was taken aback by the scale of the program and I just knew it would be something we wouldn’t be able to experience in a normal class room. It's just such a powerful thing to do with so many different aspects to it and the way you work in a team is really cool."

With over 17,000 schools involved across 31 nations, Australia has been very successful over the years in the F1 in Schools competition, winning the world finals in 2006, 2011, 2012 and 2013.

The model cars accelerate at incredible velocities down a 20 metre straight and reach speeds of up to 80km/h.

"They're loud, they're fast and make a lot of noise, it's pretty cool," said Billy.

But as the team explained, being successful is about more than just making a car go fast.

The team had to develop their website, had to market, promote and present their team. As Liam explained, the business side of the project is crucial – just like in real F1 racing.

"The business side is massive, and that's where the project starts. Then Andrew started designing the car, then it evolves more into the engineering side of it," said Liam.

The F1 in Schools competition could also be a springboard for aspiring engineers, and who knows – perhaps one day we'll see Andrew representing Australia as an integral part of an F1 team.

"My dream job from like three years’ ago has always been to be the director of an F1 team, like Toto Wolff from Mercedes or Zak Brown from McLaren," said Andrew.

"Ross Brawn's F1 run, that was cool, so maybe to run a team and have a championship winning car - that's my ultimate goal."