The students are all part of St Gabriel’s ‘Greenpower’ racing team and at the invitation of Basingstoke’s Racing Reverend (St Gabriel's parent, Simon Butler), spent the day learning about running a racing team, preparing racing cars, and managing a race weekend.

The Silverstone Festival is Europe’s largest historic car racing event with over 1000 drivers competing in cars from the 1950’s to the 2000’s in front of 150,000 spectators.

Rev Butler said: “It has been a pleasure to host the St Gabriel’s Greenpower team at Silverstone. It’s so encouraging to meet young people with a passion for engineering and motorsport and to give them a window into the inner workings of a team. I’m so impressed that St Gabriel’s nurture this interest and, through the Greenpower team give the young people a chance to get hands on building their own racing car and developing their interest and skills.”

The St Gabriel’s Greenpower team compete in the national Greenpower challenge, which sees teams of young people use their engineering creativity to design and build electric racing cars to be both fast and efficient. Students take on a variety of roles including design, engineering, sponsor management, and team management, and race their cars at well-known circuits such as Goodwood. The school team is actively seeking sponsors as they develop their car for the 2026 season and interested parties are invited to contact the school office.

St Gabriel’s Greenpower lead and technology teacher Jenny Knott said: “It’s been great for our pupils to further develop their interest in engineering and technology through being with the 10 Motorsport team at Silverstone. The young people have left with even more enthusiasm for their own racing team and lots of ideas for how to make the car faster and more efficient.”