The standard in this year's competition, held 14-17 July, was incredibly high, with a record 72 teams completing the sprint event. Two Australian teams even made the long journey from Down Under to Silverstone, and they didn't leave empty handed, with Edith Cowan University picking up two awards on the Saturday night.
However, the University of Moratuwa team from Sri Lanka perfectly encapsulated what this world-famous event is all about. With little support, they built a car as they went along, adding piece by piece as more sponsorship was secured, and received their recognition by winning the Best Newcomer in Class 1 award.
University of Moratuwa team member Harshana Kelasha said: “Participating in Formula Student will definitely help us in our future careers. We know the whole design cycle from top to bottom, and we have used everything we studied at university in this project.
"We’ve had to manage everything – from finances and business aspects to the actual engineering, which I hope will prove to be an invaluable experience in the future.”
The global competition, run by the Institution, is the world’s largest student motorsport event and challenges student engineers to design, build and race a single seat racing car in one year.
Watch the FS2016 video
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The University of Stuttgart’s combustion engine team, Rennteam Stuttgart, won after impressive performances in the endurance challenge and the overall dynamic events. Second place went to Germany’s Karlsruhe University and Austria’s TU Graz came third, while the University of Bath were the top UK team in fourth place.
Andrew Deakin, Chairman of Formula Student, said in response to the win: “Congratulations to the University of Stuttgart. It’s been great to see an internal combustion car win again. It brings to a close what has been an excellent event with the highest number of cars completing scrutineering and getting through all the dynamic events.
“The competition continues to improve every year and I look forward to welcoming all the teams back in 2017.”
Joscha Haupt, Team Leader of the University of Stuttgart, said: “It feels amazing to have won this year’s Formula Student. We have worked really hard and are delighted to have come first. It’s very tough to compete against all the strong electric teams but we enjoy the challenge of competing with a combustion engine.
“The team changes every year and the car was fantastic. We want to make sure that we continue to improve so we can come back even stronger next year.”
The competition, now in its 19th year, took place at the home of British motorsport in Silverstone.
Robert Newton, the Institution's Knowledge Transfer Marketing Manager, said: "We’re delighted with the success of the 19th Formula Student event.
"A record number of students took part with an incredible standard of engineering excellence set across the four days of competition.
"Our new mobile app received over 2,000 downloads and the live stream courtesy of GKN gave a chance for those who couldn’t make the event to see what they were missing out on.
"Over 300 volunteers gave up their time to help out during Formula Student 2016 and we’re incredibly grateful for their support. See you next year for the 20th event!"
The cars are judged on their speed, acceleration, handling and endurance in a series of time-trial races, while the teams are tested on their design, costing and business presentation skills.
Dozens of Formula Student alumni have progressed to Formula 1, and hundreds more are now working at the world’s largest automotive firms helping to design and engineer the cars of tomorrow.
Damian Milewski of Team Delft, Formula Student’s winning team in 2015, said: “Formula Student is great because it allows students to go through the whole cycle of building a product. They can work on the concept design, work through the design into the details, and actually build and test it as well; this isn’t something you can learn just by following the university curriculum.”
Also participating in this year’s Formula Student were teams from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Turkey, UK and Ukraine.
Noel Moorhouse of the University of Bath team said: “Formula Student is a lot of hard work, but fantastic fun. You get to work with a great bunch of people, build a race car with your mates, and you will learn a hell of a lot.”
Monash University team member Jenny Kwong added: “The best thing for me is the chance to get hands-on experience that I can’t find anywhere else. It’s the chance to take everything I’ve learnt at university and see it in practice with a group of people who I would call my closest friends – basically family.”
Formula Student usually forms part of the students’ engineering degree course and counts towards their final mark. For new teams who may not have the experience to produce a fully working racecar, Class 2 encourages teams to submit their designs and any manufactured parts for judging.
Formula Student partners for 2016 include Bosch, Jaguar Land Rover, MathWorks, GKN and Mercedes AMG.
Dr James Atteck, Advanced Engineer at Jaguar Land Rover, said: “Jaguar Land Rover have sponsored this event for several years and we find it’s a great proving ground for young talent. It’s a really good thing for students to have Formula Student on their CVs when they come to interviews, as it shows they’ve got a certain level of engineering that’s been proven in the field.”
Results
View the full list of results.
Photos and videos
See photographs of the event on Flickr, including the winning team and car. Visit Formula Student on You Tube to see footage from this year's event and previous events.
Official Formula Student T-shirt
Visit the Formula Student shop to check out the official FS T-shirt.
Sign up for next year's competition
To register your interest in competing, sponsoring or volunteering at Formula Student 2017, email fs@imeche.org.
Read media coverage of the event
This year's Formula Student generated many stories that were featured in publications around the world. Read
media coverage of the event.