Student racers make history at Silverstone

STUDENT racers from Cardiff University have made history by picking up the Formula Student 2017 title at Silverstone.

The Cardiff Racing team became the first UK winners in the competition’s 19-year history after beating more than 100 university teams from all over the world.

And it wasn’t just about speed. As well as racing, the students were tested on their building and engineering skills.

Judges scrutinised all of the cars in the race before the students took their vehicle onto the track to perform speed and agility tests.

The Cardiff-based team, made up of 56 students from the university’s School of Engineering, were named Class 1 Overall Winners, finishing ahead of the University of Birmingham in second and Karlstad University from Sweden in third.

Dr Mark Eaton, a Cardiff University academic involved with the winning team, said: “We are quite simply blown away.

“The Formula Student event is a fantastic and highly competitive competition. It takes considerable dedication, hard work and skill to win such an event and we could not be more proud of our students for this achievement.”

More than 2,000 students from 24 countries packed out the Silverstone paddocks with the main competition involving 19 electric vehicles and 73 cars with combustion engines.

Luca Di Marino and Alex Goff, team leaders of the Cardiff University team, said: “We could never have dreamt of this in a million years. In all the years of competing at Formula Student, Cardiff have never been victorious so all credit must go to the team for a great effort – it’s beyond our wildest dreams.”

Andrew Deakin, chairman of Formula Student, said: “It’s great to see a UK team doing well and to win the overall competition. Cardiff Racing’s entry was fantastic, their car was innovative and that showed with their performance on the track.”

The Cardiff team’s car carried the name “Gwyneth”, named after the mother of ex-Formula One driver Tom Pryce.

Pryce, who was born in Denbighshire in 1949 and died in a race accident in South Africa in 1977, remains the only Welsh driver to ever win a Formula One race.

The Formula Student competition sees cars judged on cost, presentation and design. They are also put through their paces in a figure of eight skid pan trial, acceleration and sprint events, and an endurance event.