Racing car makes rooftop debut

The car, funded with help from Santander Universities, has been designed and built from scratch by Brighton Racing Motors, a team of undergraduate students from the university’s School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics and will compete in this year’s Formula Student event at Silverstone, the home of British motor racing.

Formula Student is Europe's most established educational engineering competition and is backed by industry and high-profile engineers such as Patron, Ross Brawn OBE, the competition aims to develop enterprising and innovative young engineers and encourage more young people to take up a career in engineering. Over 100 university teams from around the globe travel to Silverstone to compete in static and dynamic events that will test their preparation and hard work.

Speaking at the launch of the new car Automotive Engineering BSc(Hons) student, Christian Stensgaard Damm said: “Formula Student is a fantastic competition and a real opportunity for us as engineering students to put what we have learned to the test and to demonstrate to employers the level of skills and experience our course has given us. Racing the car at Silverstone against teams from around the world will be a real thrill.”

Senior Lecturer and Formula Student co-ordinator at the university, Dr Daniel Coren said: “The team have worked fantastically hard to design and build a car that is good enough to compete at Silverstone and they have done a great job. The competition has really pushed them and their work will be judged against industry standards. It is really fitting that their car is the first vehicle to drive around the university’s new purpose-built parking facility ahead of its official opening in a few weeks’ time.”

The new multi-storey car and bike parking facility is part of The Big Build transformation of the university’s Moulsecoomb campus. Built by Kier Building Southern, who have also sponsored the racing team, it replaces all existing surface car parking on the campus and provides a new hub for cyclists with over 300 bike spaces, showers and lockers.