His willingness to learn and eagerness to take on challenges made it easy for senior team members to provide him support and help his growth in the team. As a result of this, Tom had the opportunity to be mentored by Jaden Partridge, a team alumni who now works at Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, and previous experience at Renault Sport Formula One Team and Red Bull Racing Formula One Team. Jaden assisted Tom in developing his vehicle dynamics knowledge, specifically around modelling and simulation. With the knowledge and confidence gained, this lead to Tom becoming the teams Vehicle Dynamics Lead from 2018 through to 2020. Through this time, Tom worked on building the foundations for our much needed vehicle dynamics knowledge

This included the development of a tyre and bicycle model. Throughout Tom’s journey with the team, he was also fighting another battle of his own. Late in high school, Tom was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma (bone cancer). For the majority of his time with the team, he kept his battle under wraps as he did not want to be treated differently or have different expectations. On the 22nd of April 2020, Tom’s time with us had sadly come to an end. This was a tough and testing period for all of us, especially because lockdown restrictions meant the team could not be together. Being a part of QUT Motorsport means that team members learn an extensive range of skills, but more importantly it means you become a part of a ‘family away from home’. The strong friendship that many of our members formed with Tom meant his loss was a difficult chapter on a personal level for many of us.

However, Tom never had any excuses and always had a positive attitude regardless of his circumstance. As a team, we ensured to follow this mentality and decided to dedicate our work in 2020 to remembering Tom. We named the car ‘Lando’ after Tom’s favourite Formula One driver, Lando Norris. We also followed the 2019 McLaren F1 livery for our own livery design as Tom owned an Orange McLaren MC4-12C. We can say with confidence that Tom was an inspiration to helping us get through many challenges thrown at us in 2020. Tom has forged a pathway for our vehicle dynamics team and has provided a great opportunity for growth to those team members he mentored during his final few months. His integral part in the team and great friendship will not be forgotten.

#RacingForTom