The Future is Building in School Labs And We’re Here For It

A few nights ago, I went to watch Brad Pitt’s Formula 1 movie. As someone who’s always been fascinated by innovation, I left the theater in awe, not just because of the adrenaline and spectacle, but because of the staggering complexity behind every race.

Each F1 car has over 80,000 components, operating in perfect harmony at speeds exceeding 300 km/h. The best drivers experience G-forces strong enough to decelerate them from 160 km/h to 0 in under four seconds. And while it’s the driver in the spotlight, the real race is often won by the engineering team the aerodynamic tweaks, the marginal gains, the race simulations.

It struck me then: F1 isn’t just a sport. It’s engineering at the bleeding edge of physics.

And then, almost serendipitously, I found myself speaking to a group of high-schoolers from India who are living that same dream in their school labs.

Enter Tempest Racing: India’s Next-Gen F1 Engineers

Tempest Racing is one of India’s top student teams from The Heritage School Gurgaon, participating in the F1 in Schools challenge, a global STEM competition that brings together over 26,000 schools from 50+ countries. The goal? To design, engineer, and race a miniature F1 car, while also building an end-to-end motorsport team. That includes branding, sponsorships, pitching, pit displays, verbal presentations, and rigorous documentation, just like a real F1 team.

From over 600+ teams across India, Tempest made it to the national finals. That’s no small feat.

The level of detail they’ve poured into the process, CAD design iterations, CFD simulations, drag coefficient analyses, and extensive testing around airflow, rakes, and even sandbagging strategies. This is an engineering discipline that mirrors what I just watched on screen.

Why Oister Sponsored This Team

At Oister, we’ve built a reputation for spotting tomorrow’s leaders today. We make secondary investments and have enabled our investors to back future leaders like Agnikul in spacetech and Shiprocket in logistics-tech.

When we met Atishay, Saanshraya, Gyansh, Jai, Svanik, and Ritvik from Tempest Racing, that same spark was unmistakable. Their focus, energy, and willingness to learn was at par with the best early-stage founders we’ve met. They had reached out to 30+ companies with sponsorship proposals, worked across time zones (with some team members in the US), and tackled real engineering and manufacturing problems head-on, including fixing ceramic bearing failures and late-night CFD analysis sessions while juggling schoolwork.

We realized then: the OpenAI or SpaceX of tomorrow might not come from a garage or dorm room. It might start in a school lab, from a team that knows what it’s like to chase perfection before they’re old enough to drive.

It’s More Than a Race

By backing Tempest Racing, we aren’t just sponsoring a student team. We’re standing behind an idea, that the age of innovation is getting younger, and India needs more early builders who aren’t waiting for permission to start.

These students didn’t just build a car. They built a startup. They handled pressure, worked through setbacks, and emerged with a product and a team stronger than when they started.

And when they grow up, we hope they remember Oister was there early, just like we’ve been for some of India’s most exciting tech journeys.

The Road Ahead

Tempest Racing is headed to the F1 in Schools India Nationals, and we’re proud to be in their corner. Whether or not they win the race, they’ve already won our respect.

To the Tempest team: You reminded us what raw ambition looks like. You reminded us of why we do what we do. Keep building, keep dreaming and know that when the time comes to go big, Oister will be there.

Written by Himanshu Periwal, COO, Oister Global.

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