UTM to play important role in establishing Malaysia F1 Team

Skudai, September 16th: Mike Gascoyne, of the F1 fame, dropped by in UTM recently for a visit to the Aeronautics Laboratory (Aerolab). He came in his capacity as the Technical Director of 1Malaysia GP Sdn Bhd, a project initiated by AirAsia's Tony Fernandes for the purpose of putting the Malaysian team to enter the 2010 Formula One World Championship. The visit came as a follow-up to the Vice Chancellor's earlier visit to AirAsia and subsequent signing of a Letter of Intent between UTM and AirAsia on 11 August 2009. Part of the purpose of the Letter of Intent was to establish collaboration between UTM and AirAsia in technical matters in the field of aeronautical engineering. While at the Aerolab, Mike Gascoyne had discussions with the Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Prof Dr Azhar Abdul Aziz, and staff from the Aeronautics and Automotive groups on possible areas of cooperation. In his introduction to the purpose of his visit, he shared what he considered the challenge of setting up the Malaysia team as very exciting for him and something different from what he has done before in his career. Mike Gascoyne also emphasised the crucial role of aerodynamics in determining F1 race winners, and indicated how UTM could play a role in the Malaysian F1 team project. The Head of Aerolab, Assoc Prof Dr Shuhaimi Mansor, gave a presentation on the facilities available in Aerolab as well as the areas of specialisation and research work done by members of the Aeronautics group. After the discussions Mike was brought for a tour around the UTM Low Speed Wind Tunnel facility. Before he left he promised that he would be coming back to UTM soon to discuss further about specific possible areas of collaboration and also offered to give several lectures in aerodynamics to students.