ROBERT May’s School has booked its place in the F1 Schools Technology Challenge world finals.

The Odiham-based school stormed to victory at the UK finals last month, booking a place for the world finals in Austin, Texas, later this year.

This finals appearance will mark the sixth time the school has achieved such a feat, making Robert May’s the most successful school in the world.

Enigma UK, the premier F1 team this year, topped the podium at the day held at Silverstone circuit, and will see the pupils jet off for the world finals, just a few days before Lewis Hamilton and company arrive in town for the F1 Grand Prix.

Led by team manager Katelyn Chelberg, Enigma’s five team members, E. Stevenson, enterprise manager; Nathan Bryce, design engineer; S. Matthews, scrutineering engineer and C. Morrow, testing engineer, put in a strong performance across all the judging categories to take home the trophy in this Formula 1-linked educational initiative which takes place in 42 countries across the world.

The 25cm models based on full-size F1 cars are judged on their speed, balance and engineering, with Enigma’s model travelling 20 metres in one second, the equivalent of two double-decker buses.

They also won the Team Sponsorship and Marketing Award and were nominated in the Innovative Thinking Award category.

Team manager Katelyn was overjoyed at the team’s achievement. “We worked really hard and really wanted this. We’ve put in so much work and meeting up for at least two hours every day for the last five months, so it’s really paid off.

“We’ve put in a lot of time on developing our car, but we know there is still room for improvement.

“We’ve learned so much through this competition, particularly how to communicate with team-mates, how to work with other companies and understand how they work, so many life skills that you learn.”

With preparations now under way for the world finals, she could not hide her excitement at the forthcoming trip. “We’re very excited about going to Texas, but it hasn’t really sunk in yet.

“Having the chance to apply for the Williams Engineering Academy is a great opportunity as well. This competition certainly seems to open doors to the F1 industry.”

The team were presented with the impressive National Champions’ trophy by Gareth James from The Institution of Engineering and Technology, and will also win a visit to this season’s British Grand Prix courtesy of Silverstone, while two members of the team also won £5,000 per year bursaries for the duration of a mechanical engineering degree course at UCL Engineering.