Time for my November blog and we seem to be fast approaching Christmas! We have had our last race of the season with the Bridgwater College Radical PR6 in which we finished 6th out of 25 cars. Since then, we have started to take the car apart for the winter in order to refresh a few areas and upgrade the engine. This will firmly put us in contention at each race next year, along with the continued support of Nelson Thornes and Planet Vocational. Look out for the Sponsor Bulletin from the race team on the Planet Vocational website which will appear every month. You can also track our progress on our Facebook page – just search for ‘Bridgwater College Motorsport’.

At the top end of the Motorsports tree, we have had a large swing in momentum towards Sebastian Vettel and the Red Bull team. The German has now won the last four races in a row and looks to be the frontrunner as the race for the title draws to a close. Three races remain in November: Abu Dhabi, USA and Brazil. News also broke at the end of October that the seat being vacated by Sergio Perez at Sauber is going to be filled by Nico Hulkenberg, which will allow the F1 merry-go-round to continue as drivers chop and change between teams.

There’s plenty of exciting shows coming up to, including the Automotive Engineering Show (http://ukautoengineering.com) on the 7th and 8th November at the NEC in Birmingham. This event also contains mini-shows in aerodynamics and composite materials. Looking further ahead to January, we have the Autosport International Show (www.autosportinternational.com), which is a real must for all motorsport enthusiasts. You will find a large range of exhibitors and something to interest everyone involved in the sector. Our students are lucky enough to be attending the event on one of the trade days.

Anyone considering going into Higher Education should consider taking a look at the new Uni Stats website (http://unistats.direct.gov.uk). This website is effectively a ‘Compare the Market’ (not Meerkat!) style website for all degree level courses. This allows you as a prospective student to be able to search for the topic you wish to study and then compare each institution in areas such as assessment methods, student satisfaction, teaching hours, employability and much more. Our Foundation Degree in Motorsport Engineering had some excellent results this year – we scored higher than the college average and were the highest scorers within the Engineering section at Oxford Brookes (who are the awarding body for our course).