Formula Student 2012

[SoonerJack]

We are within one week of the Silverstone competition.

A lot of exciting cars will come to the Home of British Motorsport.

Here an overview:

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/formulastudent/


What are your thoughts?
Will Delft whoop the competition? Will Stuttgart take the next title? Is Munich able to complete the Stuttgart-Munich-Stuttgart-Munich game? Is Monash in for a Aussie win? What about Bath and Hertfordshire?

I'm really excited to see the cars performing!

Cheers

[mech5496]

Great questions....not sure about the answers though! I will be there with a couple of friends, this year as visitors (actually my very first competition as a visitor for the past 6 years) It would be nice to have some spare time to walk around cars as well as talking with some of you!

[Yannick]

I also hope to see a nice competition. Furthermore I am wondering how the electric teams (like ours) will stand compared to the combustion teams. I imagine design judging will be very difficult!

Hope to see a lot of interesting concepts!

See you in Silverstone,
Yannick

[BeunMan]

On paper it looks like a nice design competition. On paper it also looks like the petrol cars are going to be in the plus for reliability but lack the over-the-top speed of the electrics for dynamic events.

I realy hope there will be a livestream on sunday (and fsuk radio or something).

If I get back from a waterpolo tournament this weekend in one piece i'll try to make an aggregation page from all the twitters/facebook/etc feeds from the teams.

[mech5496]

Tristan I think that Silverstone radio broadcasts on both Saturday and Sunday but not sure... Being the first competition with merged electric and combustion classes will most probably make judges' life hard. On dynamic events I would place my money on electrics though; besides reliability (which top teams should be OK with), the "good" electric cars seem faster, at least on paper.

[Fantomas]

They are far from being the first competition with merged electric and combustion classes. FS Austria did this already in 2010 after the first Formula Student Electric event in Germany.

Fantomas

[JulianH]

Fantomas, it is true, that Austria had a combined scoring since 2010, but there was still a electric and combustion scoring in the end.

Silverstone will be the first event with no "combustion winner" and "electric winner". And compared to 30-40 cars in Austria, it will be completely different with 110 (running) cars in Silverstone.

I think it will be pretty close between the classic combustions (Stuttgart, Munich, Graz), the winged guys (Bath, Monash, Erlangen) and the electric cars (Delft, Zurich).

[Fantomas]

I disagree.
There was only one overall scoring at FSA2010 and FSA2011. Both classes were competing for the same points and were able to "steal" points from each other. There may have been an award for the best electric and best combustion car, but nevertheless there could have been an electric FSA champion.

The FSUK2012 EventHandbook also lists awards like "Most Efficient Internal Combustion Engine Car" and "Most Efficient Car". One could argue that this also separates classes like different awards for best electric/alternative drivetrain and best IC car.

I agree that the competition will be different due to more running cars (but we will never see 110 cars running).

I think the Top4 teams (assuming that all of these teams compete in all dynamic events) will be Delft, Zuerich, Stuttgart and Munich.

Fantomas

[JulianH]

Well, it doesn't really matter, if Silverstone is the real first event with merged classes or not.

Fact is, that Austria had two overall winners, Silverstone won't. The special award for the most fuel efficient combustion car is nice but still you will not take home more than say 70-80 points there.


Of course, 110 cars running is not realistic. I guess we will see 60-70 cars running in the british liquid sun...


I think it will be nice to see the different concepts competing against each other with their different strengths and weaknesses. It will hurt the teams in the world ranking but that really doesn't matter...

[Thrainer]

Originally posted by Fantomas:
I think the Top4 teams (assuming that all of these teams compete in all dynamic events) will be Delft, Zuerich, Stuttgart and Munich.

Let's not forget Monash and other teams which have taken their car to an earlier competition, e.g. OBR.

Can anybody help me getting from Luton to Silverstone on Wednesday after 7PM? Then please write me at "h-trainer at gmx dot ch" or send a personal message here.

I will be tweeting from the event as much as wifi allows. What are you interested in? Weight of the cars? Size and depth of the puddles on the campground?

Regards
Thomas