Envision Virgin Racing to bring 11-year-old's car design to life

Envision Virgin Racing will bring competition winner Kitty Thwaite's climate change-themed livery to life on its Formula E car, putting it on display after she beat more than 3,000 entrants in the team's global art competition.

Held in partnership with National Geographic Kids and children's illustrator Rob Biddulph, creator of #DrawWithRob, the sustainability-focussed art competition challenged children to draw the all-electric Gen2 Formula E car and create their own custom paint scheme.

Judged by the Envision Virgin Racing’s Managing Director Sylvain Filippi and Managing Director of Nat Geo Kids Peter Johnson, both were impressed with Kitty’s thought-provoking design which features a variety of endangered animals set on a background of a ‘warming planet’, together with the message ‘land, air or sea, all animals are precious to me’.

“It will be absolutely amazing to see my design for real,” commented Kitty who lives in Tetford in Lincolnshire, UK, and attends the Edward Richardson Primary School. “We learn about recycling and emissions at school and I care about the environment a lot. I love drawing animals too; pandas are my favourite!”

To add to the excitement, Kitty was informed of the news on this evening’s BBC flagship programme The One Show where she appeared live in front of an audience of around five million, together with her mother Alison.

As part of her prize, Kitty will also receive tickets to a Formula E race next year and a video message from one of the team’s drivers. The top three entrants also received a subscription to children’s magazine National Geographic Kids.

“Everyone at Envision Virgin Racing cares passionately about the environment," said Filippi. "We run numerous initiatives like this one under our Race Against Climate Change programme. As a father of two myself, I was very inspired by Kitty’s drawing and I’d like to extend my congratulations to her and my thanks to everyone involved.”

Peter Johnson from Nat Geo added: “Kitty has managed to - in a very small space - really get across the race we are in to stop a climate catastrophe and reminded us all that we should love our earth.

"Through this design Kitty has taken us on a journey across two different environments, both crucial to our existence and used flames to represent the rising temperatures which pose such great threats to the habits, people and wildlife that inhabit them. It’s a brilliant design and certainly worthy of winning. Well done Kitty!”