Rob,

You have pointed out one of the rules that disadvantages the monocoque teams. The Carbon Fibre is unrealistically costed in the given costs. And while the weight of the C/F is still less than what you are estimating there is still a difference with the mono being more expensive. I would have to check the actual numbers. This does not necessarily match the real situation. It would be nice to see the carbon costs ammended at some stage.

There is definitely a bias in the rules towards spaceframes, which may or may not be warranted. Personally I would like to see the expectations made of spaceframes increase. Something like a mini equivalancy report for spaceframes. I don't think this is unreasonable given that the overall level of competition has risen and that teams are missing out on registration.

This might knock out some of the worst spaceframes and make a higher safety standard for the competition.

...

However the rules are the rules and we live by them. We take the cost hit and extra equivalency work for the increased performance and real life economy benefits.

As for the cf experience we have none in our Uni as well. In UWA they focus on mining and oil and gas industries. We have no automotive units and no composites units. However we thought there was potential in the composites stuff. From there it took us three years to develop the required skills and everything within the team.

I'm a strong believer that to really make progress in these cars that a longer project framework needs to exist. As in more like what do we want to build in a few years rather than what do we want to build this year. That way you can plan to acquire the team knowledge for such projects ... even if it is not readily available to you.

Kev