Northamptonshire’s first Formula Student Racing Team celebrates debut at Silverstone

Northamptonshire’s FSN Racing Team joined students from around the world at Silverstone last week, for the 2014 Formula Student event held at the racetrack. Over 3,000 students from 30 countries around the world descended on Silverstone for five days of testing and racing.

This was the first year that the University of Northampton has entered the event, which is run by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and has the backing of industry and high profile engineering companies across Europe. The teams were challenged to design and build a single-seat racing car in order to compete in static and dynamic events, demonstrating their understanding of the vehicle and testing its performance. The competition aims to give students real-world engineering experience as they conceive, design, build, cost, present and compete as a team.

FSN Racing, made up of students from the University’s Department of Engineering and Technology and pupils from Silverstone UTC, were unique in the competition as the first team to feature secondary school pupils working alongside University students for a common goal. Considerably smaller than many of the other teams, FSN Racing featured 7 undergraduate students from the University of Northampton, and two pupils from Silverstone UTC. The team competed against teams from all round the world, including Germany, Switzerland, Canada, South Korea and Iceland, many of which had over five years’ experience in the competition and considerable budgets.

At the event the team did not have a fully operational car, but were able to compete in the competition’s three static events; cost and sustainability, design and business presentation. Their performance in these placed them 87 out of 97 universities overall. The team were not allowed to compete in the dynamic events of endurance, sprint race, fuel economy, acceleration and skid pad, but they aim to further develop both the team and design for next year.

Dr Jonathan Adams​, Head of Engineering and Technology commented:  “The team have worked exceptionally hard this year and will go from strength to strength as they continue to enter Formula Student.  They have done themselves, the University of Northampton and Silverstone UTC proud!”

Mesha Potton, FSN Racing Business Manager, commented: “We are a lot clearer on what is expected of us for next year and are eager to get cracking with our new design for 2015. We are extremely confident we can be among the top teams next year.

“There will be a complete team restructure to place team members in key roles to match their strengths in order to fully utilise each member’s full potential and maintain their motivation levels. We have gained invaluable experience from this year’s competition and plan to implement our findings to enhance our 2015’s results. We are in the process of analysing the winning cars this year and will utilise various ideas for inspiration on next year’s car. The judges gave us various hints and tips to use for 2015 and we will be acknowledging these.

“We would like to thank our sponsors: Santander, Knorr-Bremse Railcare Services, BINDT, iMechE, ThyssenKrupp, Sulzer, Quinton Major and Cummins of Daventry.”

FSN Racing Team 2013/2014:

• Glen Adams – Team Principal
• Mesha Potton – Business Manager
• Rory Price – Project Manager
• Andrew Ngulube – Head of Design
• Alex Prince – Head of Build/Manufacture
• Jordan Smith – Build Engineer
• Tom Hislop – Build Engineer
• Ben Phillips (UTC) – technician
• Scott Leigh (UTC) – technician

If you are interested in joining FSN Racing for 2014/2015, or in sponsoring the team, please contact: Seyed Mirhadizadeh.