A man has made £250k in 18 months by turning old race car tyres into trainers - after he began moulding the shoes with panini makers.

Alex Witty, 25, had the idea for his business - Compound Footwear - after reading an article about tyres being wasted after the Melbourne Grand Prix was cancelled in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.



For his final project at the University of Brighton, he bought panini makers and a work bench from B&Q and began melting rubber to mould into shoes.



After graduating, with the help of small-scale grants and funding from Innovate UK, UWE and other supporters Alex was able to develop his business, flying to Portugal and visiting shoe factories asking if he could turn disused tyres into shoe outsoles.



Now, Alex is selling the £225 Monte Carlo C1 trainer and has fans including Formula 1 driver Pierre Gasli.



Alex, CEO and founder of Compound Footwear, from Bath, Somerset, said: "The catalyst was how can I use this waste and make it into a very valuable, cool product."



"I started experimenting as much as possible in my university bedroom with no access to workshops because of lockdown."



"I left with a small-scale grant of £500 from Santander and a £250 grant from my university and started making shoes."



"The next two years every instalment of cash we got we hired better qualifies professionals, designers and manufacturers."



"We launched the trainer on February 18 2025 for pre-order. "

"We're supplying a few Formula One drivers with Compound products as well as Pirelli UK themselves."



"Our biggest supporter is the French driver, Pierre Gasli."



"We gave him the clothing line, and he's been wearing them frequently in and out of the paddock for a good year now."



"We're slowly starting to infiltrate the F1 paddock"."



After leaving university, Alex spent time "learning where and how tyres go" before launching a Kickstart campaign and raising £16,000 from the public in 2023 towards his company."



Now, the company uses tyres from different types of motorsports including British GT race series including Ferrari and MacLaren, Le Mans series, British historic racing series and the ultimate goal of creating bespoke Formula One trainers.

He said: "We changed the design as we were trying to get more rubber in the soles, and got more access to Pirelli tyres."



"It's definitely been met with a lot of incredible positive support specifically from drivers in Formula One. "

"It's been kind of overwhelming with how positive it's all been". "

With a team of just eight, Alex is the only full-time employee at his company, but would like that to change with further expansion on the horizon.



He said: "We're looking forward to the next range."



"We're developing running shoes and smarter shoes that will come with further investment and growth in the next nine to 12 months."



"Profits are hard to say because I reinvest 95 per cent of the revenue back into the business."



"In terms of money brought in, probably in the last year and a half it's anywhere between £200,000 and £250,000, which I'm very proud of."



"It's nice to see the difference between melting rubber in panini presses to going to Monte Carlo to meet Formula One drivers and fit them with shoes."