Editor's Pick
A Swedish team of engineering students from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg has won this year’s Formula Student competition.
Chalmers’ impressive petrol car, with an imposing rear-wing aerodynamic package, took consistent top 10 positions in all of the eight events that make up the competition. The car won the gruelling 22km endurance race.
Formula Student competition, which took place in Silverstone this weekend, saw the tightest finish in its 14 year history. Chalmers beat the electric car from Delft University of Technology by just 2.4 points. Monash University, based in Melbourne, Australia, took third place.
This year 20 electric cars also took part, with Delft and Zwickau’s battery-powered racers both making the final top 10.
Formula Student vice-chairman, Andrew Deakin, said: “Chalmers University’s car is a masterpiece of engineering that makes a worthy winner. As well as being one of the fastest cars round the track, it also performed consistently and impressively in the static events. Delft’s electric car pushed it to the wire, showing that the future of motorsport needn’t necessarily lie in the internal combustion engine.
“This year’s competition has been truly impressive, with many of the cars displaying world class engineering that wouldn’t be out of place in a Formula One paddock. These young engineers will mature into the motorsport team bosses and industry leaders of the future.”
Team leader of Chalmers Formula Student, Jonathan Rice, said: “This is the biggest student engineering competition in the world. We’ve competed against the very best universities, not just from the UK and Europe, but from around the world. It feels amazing to have won it.
”First and foremost this is down to the team – you can’t do something like this without working as a single unit. That’s the most important thing. Chalmers Formula Student has come so close to being shut down. They can’t do that now.”
The 50 UK universities taking part also put in a good showing, with Oxford Brookes University taking 7th place after winning the figure of eight skidpad event, and taking 3rd place in the single-lap sprint. Liverpool John Moores University also impressed, taking 12th place, while the University of Hertfordshire came 15th.
Formula Student 2012 Top 10:
- Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden): 850.5 points
- Delft University of Technology (Netherlands): 848.5 points
- Monash University (Australia): 840.7 points
- TU Munich (Germany): 784.2 points
- University of Stuttgart (Germany): 778.6 points
- Tallinn University of Applied Sciences (Estonia) – 745.5 points
- Oxford Brookes University (UK) – 718.6 points
- UAS Amberg-Weiden (Germany) – 665.4 points
- UAS Zwickau (Germany) – 661.5 points
- TU Graz (Austria) – 590.5 points
Around 3,000 students in 134 teams from 34 countries entered this year’s event, making it the largest in the competition’s 14 year history.
Formula Student is run by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. The competition challenges universities from across the world to design and build an F1-style racing car in one year, before racing them at Silverstone. The cars are judged on their speed, acceleration, handling and endurance, while the teams are tested on their design, costing and business presentation skills.
