The global competition, run by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, is the world’s largest student motorsport event and challenges student engineers to design, build and race a single seat racing car in one year.
Dozens of Formula Student alumni have progressed to Formula 1, and hundreds more are now working at the world’s largest automotive firms helping to design and engineer the cars of tomorrow.
116 teams will take part in the competition at the home of British motorsport on 20-23 July 2017. A further 21 teams are on the waiting list for an oversubscribed Class 2 competition, which is set for a record number of entries.
As well as 71 teams from the UK, teams from Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Mexico, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, The Netherlands and Turkey will descend on the Northamptonshire circuit for the four days of competition, which promises to be one of the most hotly contested in recent years.
“It’s brilliant to see so many teams from around the world applying for Formula Student 2017 – it shows that the competition remains one of the most important learning experiences for those aiming to combine their studies with exposure to a real world engineering project,” said Andrew Deakin, chairman of Formula Student. “The innovation demonstrated by these young engineers gets more impressive every time and I’m extremely excited to see what they have in store for us this year.”
The cars will be judged on their speed, acceleration, handling and endurance in a series of time-trial races, while the teams are tested on their design, costing and business presentation skills.
