Formula Student
With covid restrictions having been lifted this year, the Institution is delighted to welcome spectators back to enjoy the weekend’s on-track events over the 9-10 July. Book your tickets via the Silverstone website and don’t forget to use code MEMBER10 or MEMBER10WE for 10% off your day or weekend pass.
Following the successful online and hybrid events held over the last two years, this year’s competition will return to its fully live format at Silverstone, giving more than 130 teams from over 30 countries the chance to showcase their hard work in formal presentations and dynamic events at the home of British motorsport.
The longest-running of the IMechE’s student events, the annual Formula Student competition challenges university students to design, manufacture and run a single-seater race car. With thousands of students participating each year, it is a kite-mark for real-world engineering experience, combining practical engineering experience with soft skills including business planning, teamwork and project management, preparing a new generation of engineering talent entering the workplace.
Most notably for 2022 is the largest number of electric vehicles taking part to date, with nearly half the teams taking part having submitted vehicles in this category. This includes many teams who have fielded strong petrol combustion vehicles for many years and will be debuting their first electric vehicles, such as University of Birmingham, University of Southampton, Heriot-Watt University, Queen’s University Belfast and University of Liverpool. This emulates the trends currently seen in industry as automotive OEMs move toward powertrain electrification to meet Net-Zero emissions targets.
Similarly, the competition’s FS-AI event has grown significantly in step with the growing demand in industry to meet level 5 vehicle autonomy, with 15 teams from around the world taking part this year. Using either the competition’s ADS-DV vehicle or their own scratch-built car, teams must develop effective and efficient autonomous driving systems to undertake several real-world driving scenarios for an AI driver to undertake, covering track drive, acceleration and skid pad track events.
2022 will see plenty of stories unfold over the course of the competition, chief among them being the title defence of the 2021 winners from University of Sheffield, who are quietly confident that their latest combustion car will be enough to stave off challengers.
Other things of note include:
- Whether University of Nottingham can hold on to their title as the top UK Electric team under growing competition from their rivals
- The last outing for the University of Bath’s storied combustion team, Team Bath Racing, and their final chance to claim awards
- Finding out which teams fielding electric vehicles adapt to the new powertrain type, with dozens of new entries this year
- University of Hertfordshire celebrates their 25th year in the competition, where they hope to get their electric car on track for the first time
- The return of UAS Zwickau from Germany, who are keen to claim victory with an all-new electric vehicle, having scored 3rd overall in their last appearance in 2019
- University College Dublin bring all their experience as a Concept Class team to the fore and debut their first ever vehicle on track
- Belgium’s University of Ghent team joining the UK competition with their electric car for the first time
- The return of many established teams who were not able to join during COVID, such as University of Linkoping (Sweden), University of the Basque Country (Spain) and University of Patras (Greece)
- The use of the historic Wellington Straight as the practice area for the first time
And plenty more besides! We hope you can join us over the course of the event and experience the passion and excitement for yourselves; be sure to book your tickets to join us on the Saturday and Sunday or catch up with the live feed on the Formula Student YouTube channel.
The Formula Student competition is supported by event partners IPG Automotive, MathWorks, Babcock International, Autodesk and Bentley Motors, together with sponsors Saietta Group, The Faraday Institution, AB Dynamics, GKN Automotive, Newton Europe, MAHLE Powertrain, Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains, Multimatic, McKinsey & Company, Royal Automobile Club and Siemens. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers is grateful for the assistance and support of all its partners and sponsors for this year's event.