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Department of Engineering

Engineering students race off to Germany

Engineering students race off to Germany

A group of students from the Department are to pit their wits against Formula 1 enthusiasts from across the globe.

The Full Blue Racing team; Barnabas Sleep, Graeme Leese, Helen Makey, James Warner, Jenni Whitfield, Nikhil Garrett, Tom Dix, and Yunlong David Xu, have built a prototype Formula 1 car which they have taken to race on the Hockenheimring, the 4.5km racing track home of the Formula 1 German Grand Prix, to take part in Europe’s biggest student motor sport event, ‘Formula Student Germany 2008’.

The competition, challenges students to design, build and race a Formula 1 style racing car and the team from the University of Cambridge will compete against 77 other student teams from across the globe in a four day contest from 6-10 August for a chance to win this coveted title.

Fifteen engineering undergraduates set off for Germany on Monday night. They will spend three days running a series of tests on their car, before racing both against the clock and other vehicles in four events on the track.

Nikhil Garrett is both the captain and one of four drivers in the team, which is based here at the Department. He said: "The competition is designed for teams of university students to compete against each other. This is the second year that we have taken part. Last year was a learning curve for us and we aimed to see if it was possible for us to build a car from scratch, and we did. This year we have a new chassis and a lot of new parts but there are one or two things that worked well last year that we have decided to use again this year, such as the car's suspension."

Full Blue Racing's vehicle is powered by a Yamaha motorbike engine which, they hope, will allow the car to accelerate from 0-60mph in four seconds.

The team face a series of tests and on Friday they must join other teams in giving presentations about their vehicles, explaining how they put them together to how they kept within their individual budgets. The budget for Formula Blue Racing was £5,000.

The teams will then compete against each other in four races designed to test their speed, handling, endurance and fuel consumption, including a 22km race on the track on Sunday.

The competition is not won solely by the team with the fastest car, but rather by the team with the best overall package of construction, performance, and financial and sales planning.

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