Knight Hawks will be looking to make their experience count and earn the right to represent the UAE in the F1 in Schools World Finals in the United States next year.

The Indian High School outfit will be one of 20 teams hoping to impress a panel of judges at today’s National Finals at Yas Marina Circuit.

They booked their slot by winning the Dubai leg of the regional round in May.

 

As well as designing and manufacturing a small model car, the teams will be tested on a number of elements, including speed, creativity and marketing ability.

It is part of F1 in Schools’ aims for children to gain new skills and putting them into practice as well as getting an insight of what careers in Formula One, engineering and marketing can be like. For Knight Hawks, it will be their third participation in this stage of the competition. 

The five-man team ranging from 15 to 16-year-olds, supported by Sport360°, Aditya Printers and Symscape, have good memories of this event.

In last year’s Nationals, they won the ‘Fastest Car’ category, before matching that feat at the regional round in May.

It is for that reason they go into the event with plenty of optimism, having put months of work into this project.

“Our ultimate aim is to be crowned overall champions and make the UAE proud at the World Finals next year,” said Imtiyaz Hussain, resource manager.

“We also want to win other awards especially the Fastest Car Award.”

Aman Preet Singh, team manager and design engineer, added: “Participating in this competition for the past four years has given us a lot of experience and we believe we can pull this off.  We expect a lot of competition this year.”

Knights Hawks is just one of six teams entered by The Indian High School, while there are five representing Our Own High School and two from Dubai College.

Besides the main accolade, there is plenty to play for. Across the ‘Professional and Rookie’ categories there are 18 prizes up for grabs in total.