heat 01 — how it went.
14 May 2026 · F1 Drive London. Eleven design leaders. Two hours wheel-to-wheel under the floodlights. One private back room. Pints, pro talks, and the kind of conversation that only happens after a real race.
●before the flag
●the grid
●podium · p1–p3
the night in one paragraph.
Eleven design leaders showed up at F1 Drive London on a Thursday evening — most had never met. Helmets on, balaclavas on, kit zipped. A briefing, qualifying, and then a full standing-start race from the grid. Elbows. Overtakes. A real podium.
Then the part that actually mattered — we all walked to a pub up the road, settled the tab, and got into proper pub talks. Craft, hires, the weird stuff happening in our companies — the things you can't post on LinkedIn. The group chat is still going.
This is what we wanted UNKNW Go Karting Grand Prix to be — racing as the icebreaker, the pub as the point.
the grid. p1 to p9.
Final standings after qualifying + race. Times rounded for sanity, not glory.
| place | driver | position | company |
|---|---|---|---|
| p1 | Sam Lyne | Senior Product Designer | SecondMind |
| p2 | Tikhon Belousko | Founding Design Engineer | Granola |
| p3 | Jesse Cogswell | Lead Brand Designer | Monzo |
| p4 | Andrew Wells | Senior Designer | Wise |
| p5 | Toby Abram | Product Designer | Flo Health |
| p6 | Caio Orio | Principal Brand Designer | Wise |
| p7 | Alexandra Ciobanu | ex. Design Lead | Amazon |
| p8 | Alex Bird | — | Moss |
| p9 | Olga Altukhova | Design Lead | Paysend |
the whole night.



















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