The Courier
By NICOLE CAIRNS
Ben Marshall, Casey Shevlin, Dylan Sexton and Sam Young after the awards. PICTURE: KATE HEALY
PHOENIX College students have been awarded scholarships to City University in London after becoming world champions at the F1 in School competition in Texas last November.
Three full-time team members have been given automotive and motorsport engineering scholarships to the prestigious university.
Sam Young, the collaborations and business manager for the team, was awarded the scholarship but wants to pursue sports broadcasting as a career. Phoenix F1 co-ordinator Christof Muller had taken two teams to the worlds before, with both placing fifth.
“I knew if we weren’t able to pull it off this year, we never would,” Mr Muller said.
The team won clearly, with about a 75-point margin above the team in second, the first team ever to score more than 900 points out of a possible 1000.
They also took the fastest ever Australian car taken to the worlds and were the first ever collaboration team to win.
City University representative and F1 in schools’ international judge Roger Valsler said the students were very deserving of the scholarships.
“Education in the UK is very expensive, so the education scholarships are worth about £36,000,” he said.
Team support manager Casey Shevlin said at the closing dinner, they had to wait forever before it was announced they had won.
“We sat through 17 awards, entree, main and dessert, and then the three, two and one.”
Mr Sexton said they thought they had a good chance at third.
“Then Germany was announced for third and they were our main competition,” Mr Sexton.
“But then America was announced for second, and they’d won lots of awards and we hadn’t won that many, so I wasn’t sure if we’d won then.”
The team will travel to the nationals in Canberra next month to mentor other teams and help judge.
All of the team members say they gained something from the event, whether it be people skills, public speaking, industry contacts.
“Anything is achievable,” Mr Young said.
