Salford Racing expands their industry racing partnership

With the Salford Racing student society preparing for the Formula Student (FS) IMechE championships -Europe's most established educational engineering competition at Silverstone - two new exciting industry partnerships have been forged to bring motorsport skills and mechanical expertise to the campus.

Salford-based Morson Group are the UK’s number one technical recruiter who launched the Morson Maker Space facilities on campus featuring the latest industry-standard manufacturing technologies, and provided significant backing to Salford Racing, as a brand patron.

Further sponsorship has been secured from Morson Projects, part of the wider Morson Group family, providing financial backing and engineering expertise to help scale the universities racing operations. It also assisted Salford Racing in taking part in a bespoke 2-day metal inert gas (MIG) welding at The Welding Academy. This allowed the team to sharpen their technical and competencies and to develop in-house manufacturing abilities for the SR22 racing unit. The team successfully completed the course and met the industry standard: BS 4873-1:1982.

PDC Racing came to The University of Salford at the start of the year and gave an industry talk on motorsports and their upcoming racing projects. PDC Racing were formed in 2016 and have won multiple championships with seasoned racers and trainees. They are deeply invested in supporting the national STEM agenda inspiring the young people to consider STEM careers through the exciting world of motor racing.

The guest talk was led by Gavin Johnson, Partner Lead, Driver and Instructor at PDC Racing and David Sheakey, a Driver and Mechanic, who introduced the team, their current championships and future plans. They were keen to explore how Salford students could get involved in their racing activity. Gavin Johnson extended an invite to Salford Racing to join them at their next test day (and future races) and gain real-world experience of working on the track.

Gavin Johnson from PDC Racing said: “We are very proud to be supporting STEM education through motorsport skills and future engineering careers, and excited to continue our association with Salford Racing who demonstrate a highly professional outlook towards their studies and a passion for racing.” 

Salford Racing attended Oulton Park racetrack at the end of January 2022 to assist with the first test day for PDC's Honda Civic Type-R. At Oulton Park the team were briefed by David on some of the required maintenance and Salford Racing got stuck with routine checks of the car such as oil, brakes, steering, suspension and tyre pressures, each time the car came in.

The team were faced with minor challenges to prepare the car for track, which meant that everyone had to work as a team to resolve the problem. This provided the team with new knowledge and teamworking skills to apply to their own racing project – the Formula Student competition.

Oliver Kanjoo-Parson, Student Team Director at Salford Racing, said: “Our test race day with PDC Racing was incredible and provided real insight to how to work as a team on race day! We can’t wait to work more closely with PDC Racing and to become part of their team at the next race event.”

Salford Racing will be attending the upcoming events on PDC Racing’s calendar to gain further experience and to help the team in their journey to a positive season.

Special thanks to Morson Group, Morson Projects, The Welding Academy, PDC Racing for their time, investment and support to provide valuable insights and industry skillsets to Salford Racing.

• Morson projects
• PDC Racing
• Institution of Mechanical Engineers - Formula Student
• The Welding Academy
• Salford Racing