Don't know if anyone here has a carrer in motorsport, and could give me a little advice please.

At the moment, i'm doing my first year at college studying an NVQ Level 3 in Motorsport Engineering. The course is 2 year, but we have been told we only need to do the first year to gain the qualification.

Now, the same college offers a 2 year foundation degree in Motorsport Technology, with a top up year to gain a BEng in the subject.

The only thing is, last week we were being told that this Motorsport Technology degree is too 'vast', and that most employers prefer a more specific degree such as Mechanical Engineering.

It's all very confusing, and TBH i don't fancy spending time doing a 2 foundation degree course, then another 3/4 years doing an engineering course at Uni.

Has anyone else attended Uni? Do you have a carrer in motosport? What did you study?

Any help would be really aprreciated. I'm just trying to gather some information before i go making decisions.

Many Thanks,
Matt

I'd like to try motorsport, probably on an ametuer level rather than a carrer.

Im currently doing Motorsport Engineering at Brunel University. A 'Motorsport Degree' is more specific than a general Mechanical Engineering degree not the other way around. For example, any normal engineering company will probably prefer you to have a Mech Eng degree, whereas motorsport companies may prefer motorsport but even that's not garunteed.

Im second year atm and the first two years are EXACTLY the same as normal Mech Eng. From what I have seen it doesn't change too much for Level 3 either but thats just Brunel and I could be wrong anyway.

If you are wanting to get a general engineering job later in life then you should definitely do a Mech Eng. Only if you are 100% certain that motorsport will be your life should you do a Motorsport Degree. If you do want to have a motorsport career then pick a university which actually exposes you to motorsport. Don't be fooled by talk of Formula Student either, make sure the uni has some other motorsport outlets. We are currently sorting out our placement years here at Brunel and we have had some feedback from some of the employers about what they will be looking for. Basically the motorsport companies have said that it is almost worthless applying to them unless you have had some hands on experience with motorsport in some fashion and a degree on its own doesnt show too much.

As a final point it depends on where abouts in the motorsport sector you want to be aiming for. If its anywhere other than the top ranks of WRC/F1 etc then a good motorsport technology/engineering course will defintiely be a good choice. If you are aiming to get into F1 then it seems that aerospace engineering is actually the way to go these days!!

I was told the best way to get involved would be to start hanging out at the local track, and begin talking to teams. Volunteer your services, show them what you can do. Just plopping a resume into a race team/engineering firm won't do very much unless they specifically request applications in most cases.

Of course, 90% of all of the top jobs are like this, whether it be marketting, design, engineering, whatever.

Quote from andy_bonjon :

Im currently doing Motorsport Engineering at Brunel University. A 'Motorsport Degree' is more specific than a general Mechanical Engineering degree not the other way around. For example, any normal engineering company will probably prefer you to have a Mech Eng degree, whereas motorsport companies may prefer motorsport but even that's not garunteed.

Im second year atm and the first two years are EXACTLY the same as normal Mech Eng. From what I have seen it doesn't change too much for Level 3 either but thats just Brunel and I could be wrong anyway.

If you are wanting to get a general engineering job later in life then you should definitely do a Mech Eng. Only if you are 100% certain that motorsport will be your life should you do a Motorsport Degree. If you do want to have a motorsport career then pick a university which actually exposes you to motorsport. Don't be fooled by talk of Formula Student either, make sure the uni has some other motorsport outlets. We are currently sorting out our placement years here at Brunel and we have had some feedback from some of the employers about what they will be looking for. Basically the motorsport companies have said that it is almost worthless applying to them unless you have had some hands on experience with motorsport in some fashion and a degree on its own doesnt show too much.

As a final point it depends on where abouts in the motorsport sector you want to be aiming for. If its anywhere other than the top ranks of WRC/F1 etc then a good motorsport technology/engineering course will defintiely be a good choice. If you are aiming to get into F1 then it seems that aerospace engineering is actually the way to go these days!!

That's very interesting actually, thanks for the reply.

I'm 99% sure i want to persue a carrer in motorsport, and from what you have said, doing a degree in Motorsport Engineering seems to be more suitable.

What qualifications did you have prior to Uni? A Levels, a vocational course...?

Thanks,
Matt

Quote from andy_bonjon :

As a final point it depends on where abouts in the motorsport sector you want to be aiming for. If its anywhere other than the top ranks of WRC/F1 etc then a good motorsport technology/engineering course will defintiely be a good choice. If you are aiming to get into F1 then it seems that aerospace engineering is actually the way to go these days!!

There are a huge number of different motorsport courses available, and they have less in common than you think. Brunel/Oxford Brookes both offer courses with 2 years mechanical engineering followed by specialisation.

Have a look at www.motorsportacademy.org, they seemed very helpful, and obviously less biased than most of the other careers stands at the Autosport show, their website isn't that informative last time I checked but they said they were launching a new site at the beginning of Feb, phone numbers 0845 603 8226. They said the same about aerospace engineering being the way to go

Quote from mattupson :

What qualifications did you have prior to Uni? A Levels, a vocational course...?

Brunel is 280 UCAS points for BEng and 340 for MEng, but I think that's one of the highest entry requirements of all the motorsport courses.

Thanks for that!

Experience seems to be a key factor as well. Race teams want experience among other things. You can't get a job without experience, yet you can't gain any experience without a job...

Will give a few locals companies/teams a ring over the next week, and see if they are willing to let me work for just weekends or whatevere.

Thanks for everyones input.

Matt

EDIT: Just been doing some research, and doing the foundation degree at my college will give me 300 points

Quote from mattupson :

Experience seems to be a key factor as well. Race teams want experience among other things. You can't get a job without experience, yet you can't gain any experience without a job...

You can get experience relatively easily by offering your services for free to a professional team, they normally love the concept of free labour to help them at race weekends and many will often be willing to let you do work for them during the week, again for free and most of it may be fairly simple stuff but you will absorb alot from it and it will look good on your CV. Go for smaller setups, large companies will have structured work experience programs, smaller ones will involve you a lot more middle sized setups may not be able to take you on a casual voluntary basis due to insurance reasons.

Quote from Clownpaint :

There's only one way to come in as an outsider.

Get Money. Get Contacts. Sell yourself.

Obviouslythere's a big difference between what's been discussed here, motorsport engineering/technology courses and race driving. Becoming a race driver primarily requires you to be a champion karter by age 8, read money, then get full sponsorship to run in Formula BMW/Seat Cupra/Formula Renault, read money, then waiting for someone with money (Flavio Briatorie, if you fancy doing F1) to buy you a drive on the condition that he can mess you about (Alonso + McLaren, Button + Williams etc, all boring down to which team will pay him the most for your talent). Otherwise you can be phenomenally gifted but live your life as an outcast just about accepted by those in the industry when you've won the F1 and Indy car titles back to back.