World’s largest student motorsport event comes to Silverstone

After almost 12 months of planning, designing and building, more than 2,000 of the world’s best young engineering students will descend on the home of British motorsport to battle it out and see who will be crowned Formula Student 2013 champions.

More than 100 student racing teams from 27 countries will race single seat racing cars built from scratch at Formula Student 2013, to be held at Silverstone on 4-7.

After almost 12 months of planning, designing and building, more than 2,000 of the world’s best young engineering students will descend on the home of British motorsport to battle it out and see who will be crowned Formula Student 2013 champions.

This year 49 UK universities will be in the Silverstone paddocks as they attempt to take the Formula Student title from the Chalmers University of Technology, in Sweden, who won the title in 2012 and will be returning this year.

Formula Student, run by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, challenges universities from across the world to design, build and race a single-seat racing car in one year. The cars are then judged on their speed, acceleration and endurance, while the teams are tested on their design, costing and business presentation skills.

This year, 49 of the teams are from UK universities and there are more Indian teams than ever (8). A team from Oman will take part for the first time in Formula Student history – as well as teams from as far afield as Nigeria and Pakistan.

The competition – which this year celebrates its 15^th birthday - is seen as one of the world’s best training grounds for young engineers and is supported by over 250 volunteer judges from motorsport and the wider engineering industry.

Formula Student alumni now occupy senior positions at nearly every Formula One team. This year’s event will be attended by Ross Brawn, Team Principal of MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS F1 Team and Formula Student patron, as well as our Ambassadors James Allison, Technical Director of Lotus F1, Caterham’s Technical Director Mike Gascoyne and leading Audi Sport Le Mans engineer Leena Gade.

All four will attend the Opening Ceremony to meet the teams and take part in a motorsport Q&A session.

Ross Brawn OBE, Formula Student Patron and Team Principal of the MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS F1 team, said:

“Formula Student has been helping to develop world-class engineers for 15 years now. It’s a fantastic challenge for students to undertake and encourages huge amounts of innovation, which I am particularly passionate about.”

Jon Hilton, Chairman of Formula Student, added:

“The event is now in its 15^th year and the 2013 event is set to be bigger and better than ever.

“Formula Student attracts some of the most inventive and talented young engineers from around the world and I’m looking forward to seeing all the advances there will be in this year’s cars.”

The full list of teams competing at Formula Student 2013 can be found at http://www.formulastudent.com/teams/fs2013/registered-teams