Go, go, go! National College for Motorsport in Silverstone ready to open doors to students

The new, £1.5 million facility based at the heart of British Motorsport at Silverstone will be opening to staff and students over the next few weeks as part of plans to increase the specialist skills training available to an additional 240 students and apprentices by 2021.

The National College for Motorsport, operated by Tresham College of Further and Higher Education, currently trains full-time students and apprentices from across the UK for a career as Race Mechanics at one of the UK’s most prestigious venues.

Past students have gone on to work with a range of motorsport champions across the world including Formula One teams like Williams, Renault, Team Haas, Red Bull, Force India, Manor and Mercedes where they prepare cars for competition at Grand Prix races around the world.

The new £1.5m facility is at Silverstone Park – the high-tech engineering business estate located next to the Silverstone Formula One circuit being developed by property manager MEPC. It is in addition to premises that the National College for Motorsport already occupies at Silverstone Park. The 7,500 sq ft facility will consist of fully equipped workshops, classrooms, meeting rooms and flexible learning/ exhibition space and has been designed and project managed by GSS Architecture to ensure the space is suitable to combine the practical and theoretical training of full-time students and apprentices already employed within the motorsport industry.

Kier Construction began working on the brand new site, built by Silverstone Parks, in May to ensure that the new premises will be ready to open by the end of September 2016.

Jim Harrod, head of the National College for Motorsport, said: “We are really pleased to be expanding our premises at Silverstone and I’m looking forward to opening the doors to the new facility in the next few weeks.

"Expanding our provision here at Silverstone allows us to meet the demand for apprentices within this highly competitive industry.

"As well as the new premises, the college has invested in more up to date vehicles so our students can gain their skills using new technology.

"We now have Formula BMW cars as well as Formula 2 cars supplied by Palmersport and additional new spec 2.0 Formula Renault cars”.

Ian Bray, partner of GSS Architecture, said: “The project is a good example of GSS’s ability to design, manage and procure innovative schemes that combine both commercial and educational facilities.

"The collaborative team approach promoted by GSS, and embraced by everyone involved in the delivery of this important national facility, has made the extremely challenging programme achievable.”