website<\/a>, \u201cFormula 1 is the pinnacle of motorsport and the world\u2019s most prestigious motor racing competition.\u201d<\/p>\nAt the time the club was founded there hadn\u2019t been a lot of popularity in the sport of F1 itself on campus. Sumit Punshi, a senior managerial economics student and the president of the UMass\u2019 F1 club said that Netflix\u2019s \u201cDrive to Survive\u201d series might have been a catalyst for the rise in interest of F1 racing in the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat boom [was] the reason we started this club in fall 2023, which was to promote motor sports and community,\u201d Punshi said.<\/p>\n
Punshi had been approached by a friend who was planning to start the F1 Club and after a conversation around being a Lewis Hamilton fan despite a bad 2022 season, Punshi joined the club, to later become treasurer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like sure,\u201d Punshi said. \u201cI will do everything to convince people to join motor sports and convince them to be Lewis Hamilton fans and I told him I\u2019m good at finances.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sebastian Brenner, a senior management and sport management major, discovered the F1 Club when he arrived at UMass as a transfer student. As a fan of F1, he joined the club and later applied for his current role as treasurer on the organization\u2019s executive board.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was a great opportunity for me to apply \u2026 but it wasn\u2019t just because I wanted the job, but also to connect with other people that have the same interests as me,\u201d Brenner said.<\/p>\n
He added that after transferring, he didn\u2019t know anyone, but joining F1 club helped him create new friendships, saying \u201cWe grew together as a family and I think that\u2019s my biggest reason why I came here, why I got to this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
Students don\u2019t need any prior knowledge or experience with F1 to attend meetings or events. Ella Moskovitz, a junior sustainable food and farming major, wasn\u2019t familiar with the sport at first.<\/p>\n
\u201cI worked with Sumit, we were both orientation leaders two summers ago and we just became really, really close friends,\u201d Moskovitz said. \u201cHe was always talking about Formula One and I didn\u2019t really know what it was \u2026 here we are a year later and you know I\u2019m still learning the lay of the land. I\u2019m not a pro by any means, not as knowledgeable about it, but I find it really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
The F1 club has experienced tremendous growth since they became an official Registered Student Organization (RSO) two years ago. When the club first started, there were 27 members, including the six members on the executive board. Now, they have 443 official members on Campus Pulse.<\/p>\n
Punshi said the club \u201cboom\u201d came mostly in the fall of 2024 when he was an orientation leader, adding \u201cI basically used my orientation platform to market so much F1, if you ask anyone from the class of 2028 who was an online student or in-person attendee they probably heard me say F1 five times in their one-day session or ten times in their two-day session.\u201d<\/p>\n
The executive board has expanded from six positions to 13. Each role offers an opportunity for students in any major to hold positions like president, vice president, treasurer and club representative, as well as roles in marketing and public relations.<\/p>\n
During the academic year, the F1 club hosts a variety of events including Grand Prix watch parties and e-racing competitions.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor grand prix events we do watch events where we have the race on the big screen, we rent academic spaces where there\u2019s a projector,\u201d Moskovitz said. \u201cI like the reactions people have in the room cause sometimes I don\u2019t know exactly what is going on, but I can tell if it\u2019s really good or really bad depending on [the reactions].\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to watch party events, the club offers students a chance to embrace the sport through e-racing events.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had lots of people,\u201d Brenner said. \u201cWe had our event from 7-9 p.m. and we probably went over the time limit because there were so many people interested. It was the biggest surprise that nobody expected. It was a real success.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first e-racing event found the top 15 fastest drivers through the simulator. The next one will decide the top 10, and throughout the events, they are creating a championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a championship for students,\u201d Punshi said. \u201cWe started off, as Sebastian said, we did not expect a lot of students to show up. We had more than 50 people waiting in line to try the simulator \u2026 now we have the top 10 compete and out of those five we\u2019ll have the five best drivers and then three of them will be awarded eternal bragging rights, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n
The biggest event the organization is planning for is the Minuteman Grand Prix, where students can create teams of two to three people and race in model cars. More details will be released later.<\/p>\n
The F1 club will be hosting their Mexico Grand Prix watch event on Oct. 26 at 3:45 p.m. in the Campus Center. In November, they will be hosting their third e-racing event and a Brazil watch event as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe energy is always really high, people are always really enthusiastic, and it\u2019s just really fun,\u201d Moskovitz said.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sydney Warren can be reached at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since the fall of 2023, the University of Massachusetts Formula 1 (F1) club has been connecting students through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-233599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}