A team of students with designs on being the Formula 1 engineers of the future are aiming for racing success on two fronts.

Oxford Brookes students, from left, Ian Keen, Tony Moulder, Jamie Cox and Thomas Liwith the car destined for Silverstone

The group from Oxford Brookes University are all based at the School of Technology and for the last five years have been designing, building and racing cars in the Formula Student competition.

The contest involves teams from all over Europe and beyond giving students to pit their wits against each other on a project demonstrating engineering excellence as well as other areas such as marketing.

But this week the group overseen by lecturer and project supervisor Howard Ash was testing a car at Silverstone to take part in the Formula SAE Competition in the United States.

The event involves 140 teams of student competitors from around the world who will gather to demonstrate their skills next month in Detroit, the home of the American car industry.

Dr Ash, a senior lecturer in automotive engineering, said: "Even though the cars are built by students, the level of technology is high.

"These students find work placements with Formula 1 teams and companies such as Prodrive locally and with this project they get to optimise every different area of the car."

Dr Ash added the contests are not just about winning races -- they are multi-disciplinary events. The cars are tested for acceleration, put on a skid pan, a hill climb and endurance against the clock. Costing is also taken into consideration.

The team are hoping to build on the success of last year's Formula Student competition where they won the best UK team title as well as the cost event and came fifth overall.

That success has helped the team land a £5,000 travel grant from the Royal Academy of Engineering to take the team and car to Detroit.

The car being entered in the American event is the ISIS 03B which boasts a brand new Triumph Daytona 600 motorbike engine for which the team has developed a fuel injection system among other modifications.

It will feature a data logging system that will allow designers to develop the car so there is constant progression from one year to the next.

A brand new car, Isis 04 is currently being developed to participate in the Formula Student event at Bruntingthorpe, Leicestershire in July.

Dr Ash added; "The events will be a fantastic experience for the students to be involved in."