Won world’s largest student engineering competition

“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," says Andrew Deakin, vice president of Formula Student.

Behind the victory lies ten months of preparation and hard work from all the 25 students in the Chalmers team.

"It was a great feeling to step onto the podium with the Swedish flag, while thousands of students applauded. Many found it hard to hold back their tears," said Jens Kjellerup, one of the participants in the team.

Formula Student challenges universities from across the world to design and build an F1-style racing car in one year before competing with 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. The contest started in 1982 by GM, Chrysler and Ford who thought that engineering students needed more practical experience.

Today there are over 500 teams from around the world and the largest competition held at Silverstone by The Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

The finish was very tight in this year's competition. Top prizes were separated by only a few points – of 1000 in total – which added extra nerve for competitors, spectators and commentators.

“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," says Jonathan Rice, Team Leader of Chalmers Formula Student.

"Our goal is to deliver the engineers of tomorrow, which means that our primary focus is on education, with victory seen as a product of the excellent education we provide.  We achieved 141 out of a potential 150 points in the Design Event, where the students' knowledge is put to the test by industry experts, which demonstrates that we are also winning on the educational front."

Next year, his team will stand on the starting line with number one on the car. Chalmers Formula Student will be the team that other universities will try to defeat.

Foto: Sharan Prathaban
Text: Christian Borg

High scores in all events

Chalmers won with 851 points, before Delft University of Technology (848 points) from the Netherlands. Monash University from Australia came in third with 841 points.

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