Formula Student
Please introduce your university and team!
2018 is the first time that Thunderbird Formula Team are taking part in the competition with our internal combustion Formula Student car. We are about 25 team members in size, headed by team manager Muhammad Haseeb Altaf. We have three heads of disciplines; Osama Rehman Tawanger is our Chief of Chassis, Nouman Mehmood is Chief of Aerodynamics and Usman Umer is our Chief Marketing Manager.
What are your objectives for this year’s competition?
Our objective is to get a place in the top 50 and ideally a top 10 position. Our car is comprised of a 660cc Kei Car Engine with modified Suzuki Alto hubs and modified Honda Accord wishbones. Currently we’re finishing our car ready for the competition, in particular working on the car’s aerodynamics, and we have run the car at 120km/h and it went amazingly!
How does your team organise your workload?
We worked 20 hours a week on our car and it’s nearly ready!
What is new and exciting for your team in 2018?
As we are participating for the first time in the Formula Student competition, we have a totally new team, with new equipment and sponsorship from our university, the International Islamic University, Islamabad. Using pre-engineered components and modifying them to our requirements has saved a lot of time and cost to produce our car.
What have been your biggest challenges this year and how have you overcome these?
As this is our first time we are participating in the formula student event, the biggest challenge for us is to finish the car and qualify both in the static event and dynamic event.
What made you join Formula Student?
Our team has the potential to do something new by using engineering, so Formula Student is the only platform for engineers where you can fulfil your dream of designing and building a race car.
What’s your proudest moment at Formula Student?
As this is the first time we are participating in the Formula Student event, our proudest moment at the competition will be qualifying in both the static and dynamic events at Silverstone.
What advice would you give for fellow teams?
I would advise fellow teams to read and understand the Formula Student rules very carefully before building the car and also take a lot of time in managing the cost of your car. You have to build it with a limited budget while not deviating from the rules!
How can we keep up to date with your team?
http://iiu.edu.pk is our university website and our Team Facebook page has the latest details
We look forward to checking out the team’s first car at Silverstone in July!
(Photos taken from the IIUI Formula Student Facebook page and provided by the team.)
Want to get your team featured by Formula Student in the run up to Silverstone? Get in touch with Chris Smout to get the conversation going!