Great photos there. I didn't realise the Elephant guys broke their wishbones. Felt really sorry for them. Hope they can get their ABS disconnected for Germany!

On behalf of everyone on the Cal Poly SLO team I would like to thank everyone that helped us out over the weekend. The guys on Lions, Delft, Cardiff and all the other teams were beyond helpful.

Congrats to all teams who made it to Silverstone and mainly to Stuttgart for an unbelievable performance and Braunschweig for competing that good after their heavy crash.

It was an interesting and funny weekend, especially the gym sessions of TU Delft every morning

Unfortunately for our team form Darmstadt it was the worst competition in the last years. Gaining scruitineering, tilt and noise without problems we had a really massive gearbox failure during brake test. For us still inexplicable because we used a relatively new GSX-R 600 gearbox. The second gear disintegrated completely.



A big thanks to Stockholm and Kaiserslautern who equipped us with spare parts. We were able to fix the gearbox in one night and two day shifts.

We were able to rescruitineer on Sunday morning and get our brake test.
But sadly an overseen fragment of the gearbox failure was sucked in by the oil pump which came to a sudden halt during a test run for the endurance.

As a result our engine was completely (and that means completely) destroyed within a few seconds and we know face major problems to fix our car and get ready for FSG

quote:

Originally posted by James Morris:
Some pics

What pressure were these at guys :-)

Great result, glad the rubber was ok.

Ben

They started off slightly less than the prescribed value we'd tested after you suggested about temperatures affecting the pressure. By the looks of it, that was my first run, so not all the heat was in them. The second time round, and during the endurance they were really good, although our setup needs a little work at the back.

Rubber looked fairly shagged at the end of endurance, but not by any means as bad as the Avons. The grip was pretty phenomenal though. I'd guess North of 1.5G from the feel of it. We could have been faster (Herts were till they got pulled), but we were getting a lot more oil surge than in testing so I was just nursing the thing along. Still, I say nursing but we were 8th fastest after we finished!

Since we've got a good finish now, we're going to push it a lot more in Germany. Jake is going to do some setup work on Friday to try and eradicate some of the power oversteer we get. TC worked well in sprint though and the diff is a lot lot tighter now Physical traction is no longer a problem!

Looks like a fine competition! Congrats to everyone.

As for Claude, he for the most part tells it like it is. Almost everything he pointed out we said "yeah... we need to do something about that," and while he can be abrasive, he lets you know what you should look into doing, and what he thinks might help you.

I'd rather get reamed than get a judge that just nods at everything you say. Preferably a happy middle ground, but I want to learn, because something can always be improved.

quote:

Originally posted by Nitesh:

quote:

Originally posted by jonnierice:
Claude Rouelle is in his usual form. I spoke with a 1st year team from the UK who received the following comment from him in the design event;

"I've been a design judge in this competition for 12 years and this is the worst car I've ever seen. Even the indians build better cars than this."

That's mighty insulting. not only to that team but to us as well. I am not trying to claim that we build very competitive cars at the competition but to be used as the benchmark for the worst cars present there is a different story all together..

I took the comment (as presented here) to mean that relatively speaking Indian teams have less infrastructure close by in terms of a mature motorsport industry, such that it is harder to a good car, not that the students have fundamentally less ability or knowledge.

The point is frankly well made that the standard of some UK teams is woeful relative to the available local resources.

Mike: interesting comments. It definitely looks like you're struggling with rear camber compensation (or rather a lack of it) Do you have any pics of the tyres post-endurance? Feel free to post them here or send direct.

Ben

Yes, camber compensation isn't great. It's a shame Phil isn't around for another year since I think there would be less compromise from the point of suspension over chassis. We're just in the middle of a Lessons Learnt Review as part of the knowlege transfer so the things that Phil would do differently will get passed onto Danny who is taking over next year and the year after.

We could really do with greater inclination on the upper wishbone (from my very entry level understanding of VD) a la Stuttgart. Perhaps not quite as extreme as Lancaster though.....their upper and lowers were mounted in the same vertical plane....

From a driving point of view, it feels worse on the exit under power. Mid corner it's pretty much OK, and since camber change under bump is virtually zero, I wouldn't have thought the camber change will get any worse on the exit. To me it feels like we need softer damping, but then that's something we can't really change. I was thinking of maybe raising the ride height a bit to increase the weight transfer to the back?

The only picture I can find of the tyres even slightly close up is this.



There was some graining on the inside, but wear was pretty even on all four tyres.

I'm not in Brum at the moment so don't have the tyres to hand.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike hart:
Yes, camber compensation isn't great. It's a shame Phil isn't around for another year since I think there would be less compromise from the point of suspension over chassis. We're just in the middle of a Lessons Learnt Review as part of the knowlege transfer so the things that Phil would do differently will get passed onto Danny who is taking over next year and the year after.

If possible, get him on the OptimumG seminar at FSG.

Ben

First of all thank you for the congrats and i also want to congratulate all teams who got their cars running at competition! Especially Braunschweig! When they fixed the crashed car it reminded me when we cut of the whole rear frame to use the cbr engine instead of the mahle. You need definitely a great team to do such a job in that short time.

I would like to tell you some of my impressions of that competition.

Like on almost every formula student / fsae competitions the spirit was great. You can meet there old friends in the pits and talk with teams about their cars. I really enjoy that. Its always interesting how fast you can find and get spare parts from your "rivals". Also its great to give somebody a ball joint and he thanks you like you saved his life.

It was a great competition but it was not one of the hardest. I want to say that i don't think that we were that extreme fast. Many very good teams had problems there and other very fast teams were not there. The track was very fast, almost like Italy! In my opinion is that better for us than for Delft who did a very good job. I just tell you that because some people told me that we were unbeatable fast or similar.

Again the marshals did not a good job. Again bad luck for Helsinki... the blue flag penalty. Our 2. driver got the finish flag after the 3. lap. I am sure that there are more things. I know that they are volunteers, but on all other competitions i know it works better.

Claude: I had a 20-30 min talk with him in our pit. Most of the time we talked about the team, how the team works etc. and not about the car it self. I liked that because i think that the team it self is much more important than the tech stuff. As far as i can rate him i cant believe that he just said "crap" and nothing else. I must say he came the evening after the autocross.

I hope to see a lot of you at Hockenheim. I would be glad if some people visit me and my team in the pits

Congratulations to everyone competing and thank you all for a great competition!

We are currently preparing an after party for the FSG Mahle party... Some party pics from Silverstone:



[photography: Jorrit Lousberg]

That was an awesome party indeed. Thanks for all the teams who joined us. Especially the guys from India, who have finished enduro for the first time in history!! They were pretty pleased about that as you can see on this video

Just a small remark about the marshalls, our second driver got a minute penalty as well. I've seen the footage, the marshall's standing behind a photographer on a totally wrong spot where cars drive away from him, not even waving the blue flag but holding it close.
Kinda makes you wonder, would both the Helsinki and Delft driver ignore this man if he was easy to see? I know from personal experience that drivers are considered crash-test dummies, but I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt every now and then.

Don't get me started on the rest of the incidents I've seen in Silverstone and on the fact that you are considered guilty until you prove your innocence.

See you in Germany!

Miki Hegedus
Delft University of Technology

Here's a few pics I took. I didn't take many pics this year as I was rushing around sorting stuff most of the time.

Congratulations to all the teams who did well, whether it be winning or finishing enduro for the first time!

Well done everyone!! It was a very interesting weekend with emotions going up and down every minute!!

I didn't really have time to take photos this year but I still have got some.

12/07/2008

13/07/2008

By the way, the Independent has stories about Formula Student 2008.

University of Stuggart on the Independent

Team Bath Racing on the Independent

Help!

We managed to lose a pair of new Sparco gloves at the Silverstone Event.

If you've found them, please contact me or anyone from the Graz University of Technology Racing Team.

daniela.jud(at)racing.tugraz.at

Thanks for your help!

Spewin'

Hi guys, I've uploaded some photos to my gallery http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/nickcoolus






http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/nickcoolus