Formula Student shifts into gear for 2018

With less than 60 days to go, teams across the world are already revving up for Formula Student in July. Here’s a quick update of what skills and upgrades some of the teams are bringing to the competition.

Monash Motorsport return to the UK competition. As one of the two teams representing Australia this year, Monash Motorsport will be bringing both a Petrol and an Electric car in 2018 to challenge the podium positions, thanks to a modular design and a process the team call “Concept Utilisation”. “If a team pushes to develop a highly advanced vehicle with many complex systems which would theoretically net a large sum of points at competition, there is a possibility that without sufficient testing time, the team would be unable to fully utilise this vehicle concept’s full potential” explained Vincent Chu, the team's Chief Executive Officer.

Mobil 1 Sussex Racing get back to basics. Armed with a single cylinder KTM 450 SX-F, their first new power unit for several years, the team have enjoyed a 50% weight decrease in this area. “It’s great to have an instant benefit like that” explained Joe Burrowes, head of the Powertrain team “but it does put us really out of our comfort zone and we’ve had to learn how to work with a totally new engine in a short amount of time.” Despite only having a few months to get used to it, the team are confident with their current set up, with Joe adding that “the power to weight ratio is really impressive, and we’ve been tuning the torque curve so we’re happy that we’re getting the most performance out of it and can get round the endurance event”.

SUFTS on track for significant reductions. Technical Director Alvaro Sanchez-Vella for University of Southampton’s team has three clear objectives for this season’s car: “Reliability, Weight Reduction and CAD for everything. Reliability is really key for us this year. We want to build a car that can run for the two days of competition with no issues. To reduce weight we’re looking at all aspects of the car to identify opportunities to optimise material choices and whether OEM parts offer better performance. So far we’re doing pretty well, though we’re targeting between a 5-10% reduction so there’s always more to do.” With this focus on reliability, the goal of a top 15 place for this team seems achievable.

Align Racing UIA make waves. Hailing from University of Adger, this Norwegian team are looking forward to debuting their first internal combustion-based entry “Ludvig”, with their team of over 60 engineers hoping to compete in all static and dynamics events. “Formula Student provides the greatest opportunity for a “real” practical experience where a true multidisciplinary team could benefit from the result” said team leader Andreas Fjetland “This gives us real life experience in having engineers work with an economics department and a marketing team to translate the technical language to a broader audience.”

Team SURTES power up for 2018: having switched to electric vehicles three years ago, the team from Surrey University are looking to bring their combined experience for a top 15 position. Sporting CAN FD Bus sensors, their new car has enabled a data-driven approach to design validation and performance improvements, with physical testing to back up full CAE design. The challenge then is to make sure that the data they record is relevant and valuable – simply “bad data isn’t useful!”, as Electronic Engineer Tom Bates put it.

This is just a snapshot of the 130 teams from over 30 countries who are taking part, with the first British winners Cardiff Racing preparing to defend their 2017 title this summer. Get trackside and enjoy the passion and excitement at Silverstone: spectator tickets for the 13-15^th July are available via Silverstone.