HIGH SPEED FEATURE ACCESS
The University of Wales racing team in action
“ The mental processing, the analysis and the application means so much more when you’ re sat there and you’ re saying,‘ I’ m turning into Copse, what’ s holding me back, why aren’ t I braking later, what do I need to?’ I can now see where the drivers’ questions come from and it’ s so much more relatable – but whether I can put it into practice or not on track is a completely different thing!”
CTJ Photography
Proving Ground
It is now five seasons since Iley made his Sports 2000 debut and in those years the university project has continued to bring through some of motorsport’ s brightest young engineers. Iley is now consulting for the new Cadillac F1 team alongside at least two of the university’ s graduates, while other alumni have found jobs in World Endurance, World Rallying and with other teams in the F1 paddock.
The project now engages over 50 students, with 15-20 attending each round, and Iley explains:“ We try to combine coursework with car development where possible, so they’ re actually applying things they’ re learning on the car, and the job descriptions of who works on what during a weekend are similar to any professional racing environment – we have telemetry, race engineers, people looking at engines, gearboxes, front end, and so on.”
When Iley first got involved, he and Tudor came up with the idea to get a set of students to evaluate the bodywork on their existing Mark 1 MCR and see how they could improve it. The work, which was supported by the manufacturer, involved wind tunnel testing, prototyping and track testing, and resulted in a cost-effective upgrade that has since been adopted by pretty much every MCR runner on the grid.
“ A lot of lap records have gone since the new bodywork came in,” smiles a satisfied Iley.“ We’ ve had some category tyre changes and people keep resurfacing circuits in the UK, which changes the parameters, but we’ re well over a second quicker
Revolution- September 2025
UWTSD students learning from hands-on mechanical studies in the Sport 2000 paddock
than the old bodywork. We were very conscious of keeping it cost effective and cost efficient and we are pleased that so many of our competitors have now taken it on via MCR.
“ It’ s a good calling card for the university because it shows not only are the students learning good stuff, but they’ re putting it into practice and we’ re racing it. We’ ve gone on to change things further since and one of the areas that we’ ve taken on another step has recently appeared on other MCRs too, so they’ re clearly looking at us and going‘ oh they’ re doing that, that’ s why I should do that!’ which is nice for the students to see.”
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