Formula Student Germany
The weekend after the Formula 1 race at the Hockenheimring, another motorsport event was held there which interested me. This was the inaugural Formula Student event in Germany, equivalent to the Formula SAE competition in Australia. Basically, students design and race small cars in a once a year event. My old team from UNSW was invited here, so I had to go and cheer them on! Note, that is NOT how Germans usually spell Sydney.
The quality of the competition was fantastic, there were so many technical innovations considering that this is the first German competition. Beautifully made carbon fibre monocoques, a CVT, carbon fibre steering wheels with digital readouts, well styled bodywork, and what appears to be lots of sponsorship money. The winning team from Austria, TU Graz, had a redbull logo on the front of their car - just like the Formula 1 team!
The UNSW team did an excellent job, and made it to the design final, which consisted of the 6 most well designed cars. When the endurance event started, with a very quick car, they had a good chance to achieve the overall victory. Unfortunately bad luck struck during the last and most important event, the endurance race, and the car rolled to a halt with electrical gremlins. Nevertheless, it was a very competitive performance in a high quality field.
There was a bit of mad weather during the event - sun in the morning, torrential down pour for less than half an hour on both days, following by some hurried work to dry the track and continue the competition. Luckily I didn't have to sleep in the camping ground!
A trip report to Hockenheimring wouldn't be complete without a photo of some exotic cars on the real race track. So here are a couple, courtesy of a Porsche club day running at the same time!
The quality of the competition was fantastic, there were so many technical innovations considering that this is the first German competition. Beautifully made carbon fibre monocoques, a CVT, carbon fibre steering wheels with digital readouts, well styled bodywork, and what appears to be lots of sponsorship money. The winning team from Austria, TU Graz, had a redbull logo on the front of their car - just like the Formula 1 team!
The UNSW team did an excellent job, and made it to the design final, which consisted of the 6 most well designed cars. When the endurance event started, with a very quick car, they had a good chance to achieve the overall victory. Unfortunately bad luck struck during the last and most important event, the endurance race, and the car rolled to a halt with electrical gremlins. Nevertheless, it was a very competitive performance in a high quality field.
There was a bit of mad weather during the event - sun in the morning, torrential down pour for less than half an hour on both days, following by some hurried work to dry the track and continue the competition. Luckily I didn't have to sleep in the camping ground!A trip report to Hockenheimring wouldn't be complete without a photo of some exotic cars on the real race track. So here are a couple, courtesy of a Porsche club day running at the same time!
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Kerv