A group of Hampshire pupils have become world champions after winning an international F1 championship.

The Brittania Red team, made up of six 16 and 17 year old students from Robert May's school in Odiham, came out victorious at last week's F1 in Schools world finals.

The team had to create a scale model F1 car with advanced engineering, produced a highly creative and instructive presentation of their team and built a car that has the speed to compete with the best of the world.

Not only did the team come out as world champions, but they were also given the award for verbal presentation and for the best engineered car.

They have now won scholarships from UCL Engineering, London.

Team manager Amelia Doward, 16, said: "It’s always been our aim to be world champions, we’ve be a team for three years and we’ve been working hard towards it but I don’t think we ever envisaged this happening.

"There were so many strong teams this year, we really didn’t expect it.

"We’ve put in thousands of hours for this, we’ve lost all of our social life and maybe we can have some sleep well now, but it was so worth it.”

The rest of the team is made up of Callum Green, 16, Zachary Taylor, 17, Edward Hodgson, 17, Caolmhe Thomas, 16 and Abigail Bessant, 16.

The F1 in Schools final, held virtually this year because of the pandemic, sees student teams from around the globe take on their international rivals in the biggest global STEM educational initiative.

It is aimed at the future engineers and professionals of Formula 1.

F1 president and former Ferrari team boss, Stefano Domenicali, was the one to announce the new world champions, saying: "Formula 1 is really believing in this project in its entirety.

"It's been a great moment to share this intensity and when I saw all the boys and girls really so excited about what they are doing, it reminds us of who we are and this responsibility needs to be shared with the world and I will do this at the next Grand Prix."

The United Kingdom has a fine motorsport pedigree, with six of the ten current teams based in the country and Silverstone playing host to the first ever Grand Prix in 1950.

Andrew Denford, founder of F1 in Schools, said: "“I would like to congratulate every student in every team for all the work that they have put into the competition, in one of the most challenging years that we’ve all had to endure.

"We’ve met some very talented students and it was a very close competition, with Brittania Red just outperforming their rivals, they were just superb, huge congratulations to them.

“We had three very exciting days of competition including plenty of close racing, with the passion of the students shining through in all the judged sessions.

"I know that all the students will have had an amazing Aramco F1® in Schools World Finals 2020(21).”

The Quintolux team of Ireland finished second, with Nebula of Australia in third position.