Elijah’s Blog- A Trip to Silvestone F1

We are always excited to discover inspiring stories involving young individuals!

This blog post is from Elijah, a Jack Petchey Foundation Intern who recently went on a trip to F1 Silvestone with the young people from his Foundation!

About me

My name is Elijah, and I am a Jack Petchey Foundation Intern. I work at Renaissance Foundation as their Programme and Outreach Coordinator. Renaissance Foundation is a London-based youth charity dedicated to supporting young people with caring responsibilities or those who have a chronic health condition.
My role is diverse and varied. I work to ensure that the charity’s programme runs smoothly, helping to deliver all our sessions for our young people, whilst also constantly helping to improve it through bringing new ideas. Simultaneously, I liaise with referral partners as well as support our outreach efforts/strategy through helping to deliver our free school assemblies. Our assemblies are aimed at raising awareness of young carers and those with health conditions among students. I also support our social media strategy and communications – such as writing blogs for our website, taking photos at all our sessions, and creating reels from flagship RF events. So far, I’ve been involved in almost every aspect of the charity’s work, and it has helped me to develop as a professional tenfold.

Arriving at Silverstone F1

One of the big highlights of my internship, so far, is going to Silverstone F1 with Renaissance Foundation. As a lifelong F1 lover, I have watched the British Grand Prix every year for as long as I can remember. This was not only an amazing opportunity for me, but also an incredible opportunity for the 8 young people we took with us to the F1 Press day at Silverstone! This visit is under the project “Future Ready”, which is a part of the Renaissance Foundation Programme. It is aimed at preparing young people for the professional world through developing their professional and personal skillsets. It also gives them the confidence to feel that they can work in exciting industries such as F1; that there is a pathway into it. Trips like this are designed to inspire them and give them an insight into what it would be like to work in these high-level places. The trip certainly did that.

We arrived at Silverstone via minibus, collecting our VIP access lanyards and promptly making our way to the paddock. As if excitement wasn’t already high enough, as we made our way onto the paddock, we saw Williams F1 Driver Carlos Sainz doing an interview with Sky F1 and we also saw VCARB (Visa Cash app Racing Bulls) driver Isak Hadjar waltzing through the paddock at the same time. If anything, it was a taster of what was to come.

First Stop: VCARB F1 Garage

First up on the schedule was a guided tour of the VCARB F1 garage. For most of us, this was the first time having the opportunity to see an F1 Garage! We were shown the tyre garage and the young people asked excellent questions about the importance of F1 tyres. Later, we got to see the mechanics and engineers at work, getting to see both VCARB F1 cars and seeing the level of detail that goes into making these machines work. We were then shown some of the different parts of the car, and shown the process as to how they are constructed. Finally, we were taken onto the pit wall and got to take pictures outside of the garage.

Meeting Luke Browning

After this tour, we swiftly made our way to the Williams F1 motor home where we had a meet and greet with Williams Academy F2 driver Luke Browning. Our young people got to ask him questions about his career journey, his passion for racing, and his interests and hobbies outside of F1. He also gave the young people empowering and inspiring advice for their own future aspirations, as he also asked the young people what their interests/hopes and dreams are. Meeting a humble young driver competing in Formula 2 was inspiring for the young people and showed them where self-belief, passion, and hard work can get you!

Garage Tour of Mercedes AMG F1

After lunch, we had another garage tour, this time of Mercedes AMG F1. It was brilliant to see the inner workings of such a historic and record-breaking team such as Mercedes. The young people got an indication of the detail and precision that goes into making a team like this so successful in a sport/industry as fiercely competitive as F1. This time, pictures were taken by Mercedes’ very own photographer – very cool! From here we visited the Pirelli motorhome to do a Q and A session with Pirelli. Pirelli are the tyre manufacturers for F1, so we learnt all about careers, job roles, and opportunities at Pirelli!

After this, we made our way to the Aston Martin motorhome where we had another meet and greet, this time with Aston Martin brand ambassador, and head of F1 Academy (all women formula series), Jessica Hawkins. The young people asked her great questions such as what it was like to be a woman in motorsport, advice for young women who want to work in motorsport in future, and what her future aims were in terms of driving F1 Academy forwards. She was extremely inspiring and an amazing person for our young people to meet!

My Takeaways

To wrap up the day we had 2 amazing opportunities to meet more truly inspirational people; Sky F1 Presenters and Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli! We met the Sky F1 Presenters in the pit wall. They spoke to us about F1, careers, how to get into sports journalism, and why they pursued this career path. You could feel their passion, and they were some of the nicest people we met during our visit! This was followed up by us returning to Mercedes AMG F1 to meet 18-year-old Italian prodigy Kimi Antonelli. Our young people had a meet and greet with him and he was a truly inspiring and down-to-earth person. He is a shining example of the importance of not only striving high and believing in yourself career wise but also of working on the quality of your character and being a great person. Ultimately, this trip showed us that if you think you can, you really can!