During the last years the number of Events and Teams grown year by year. Everybody wants to know which team is the best worldwide.

Therefore a couple of people created the first world ranking. This world ranking list will be updated after each event.

And here it is, the first ranking:

WR University WRPoints Country City
1 Universität Stuttgart 828,28 DEU Stuttgart
2 University of Western Australia 798,31 AUS Perth
3 University of Wisconsin-Madison 778,35 USA Madison
4 University of Toronto 751,85 CAN Toronto
5 TU Delft 750,41 NLD Delft
6 Sophia University 750,35 JPN Tokyo
7 The University of Tokyo 748,49 JPN Tokyo
8 University of Florida 739,97 USA Gainesville
9 Missouri University of Science and Technology 711,47 USA Rolla
10 Technische Universität Graz 699,61 AUT Graz

The ranking of all teams during the last years can be found on here: FS World Ranking

Frank Roeske

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Frank "Ruska" Roeske,

So is this based on just the total number of points earned?

If so, can we make that points earned per dollar spent? Just for fun.

that'd be difficult since the each team's budget is not exactly known....

I think this would be a great idea, although difficult. It would truly demonstrate who the most clever and innovative are.

quote:

Originally posted by Wesley:
So is this based on just the total number of points earned?

If so, can we make that points earned per dollar spent? Just for fun.

I don't see how this is really valid. A team that gets 900 points at a 120 car competition cannot be compared to a car that gets 900 points at a 25 car competition. The only way this would work if the stakes at each race would be the same (weighting). Imagine in F1 that with the constructors and drivers points race would look like if some teams didn't show up to certain events.

Well, they weight each competition based on the "competitiveness of the event" each year, I'm assuming based on total attendance.

quote:

Originally posted by RacingManiac:
that'd be difficult since the each team's budget is not exactly known....

I know. But it'd be informative to know.

Hmmm Frank,

sorry to say that but in my opinion totally meaningless. Like it was said before you can't compare the different events. It is far more harder to win in Germany, perhaps the strongest event worldwide than in Italy which is more a fun event.
And it is quite unfair to take the last six events into account. This means
- teams who don't exist for more than 3 years have no chance to make a good rank... A special rule should be made for that
- a brilliantly good team with bad luck is ruled out when they failed 1-2 events. For example the Technical University of Munich: in my opinion one of the 5 fastest cars in the world for the last years with an unbelievable tough luck. Look how fast Mike Rockenfeller drove their last years car in the show event in Hockenheim against last years car from Stuttgart. It think the difference was more than 2 seconds. And in this statistics Munich is placed 107.

What about a ranking which is leaned on the old F1 rules from the 80s?
You count five or six events-results for a teams and you have two void results which don't count. And of course a special rule for teams who didn't compete in that many events at all.

But nevertheless, there is no doubt for first place

the quality of a car/team also includes the preparation/reliability that allows it to complete an event. I think that if a team builds 'good' cars that fail to finish all events then maybe the car isn't so good afterall. We have certainly had our fair share of failures at competition, and although in some cases we were unlucky that the timing coincided with an event, I don't think there's many failures that are purely bad luck.

Anyway, I think this is reasonably interesting, even if it has flaws, gives you a nice thing to aim for in regards to trying to move up the world rankings

quote:

Originally posted by MalcolmG:
the quality of a car/team also includes the preparation/reliability that allows it to complete an event. I think that if a team builds 'good' cars that fail to finish all events then maybe the car isn't so good afterall.

That's right for sure. But we have to consider that we as students are all limited in our ressources, knowledge time and money. Thus, it's is in the nature of the competition that our cars aren't that reliable as a Formula 1,2,3 car.
OK, any team which only finishes in 1 of 3 occasions shouldn't be within the range of top teams according to this list. But 1-2 void results should be a thought!
Without something like that the list is maculation and too much influenced by "luck", sorry to say that.
Or can any team out here assert that they finished all of their last six events???

I remember battery terminals from aftersale batteries which loosened, perfectly timed backfire destroying airboxes, cones striking the kill switch, material defects in newly delivered gearboxes or chain drives which surrendered in the last lap.

Nobody is immune to that, especially in FSAE/FS. But a failure like that will put you down in the last at least 10-20 places.

quote:

Originally posted by DART-CG:
Without something like that the list is maculation and too much influenced by "luck", sorry to say that.
Or can any team out here assert that they finished all of their last six events???

Seriously? A very large part of racing is luck, just like any sport or competition. And when you lose, even if it is due to luck, you go down a position.

Florida's football team had ever opportunity to complain about "bad luck" that knocked them down several places in the BCS when a PAT was blocked. Instead of complaining, they promised to play harder. I think their performance last night is a pretty good indication of their dedication.

I will also note that this ranking system will be the center of many heated discussions for years to come, just like the BCS.

May the /rants begin!

/playoff system needed for FSAE

quote:

Or can any team out here assert that they finished all of their last six events???

We have finished our last 7 events with perfect reliability, hence the 4th place ranking.

Obviously these rankings have to be taken with a grain of salt. The term 'best team' can have many definitions, it's something that is impossible to quantify.

DART-CG is right in that it might be a little incorrect that one failure can put a team down at least 10 places (Although Stuttgart managed to survive their failure in FSG to emerge as 1st). Maybe a remedy for this could be to allow for a team's worst event to be eliminated.

All in all I think the rankings are positive. As MalcolmG mentioned it gives a team something to aim for.

Good to see how the discussion starts, which was the main reason for the topic.

In our opinion the ranking is the answer to a questions which is ask since we have more than 1 competition worldwide: How is the best?

The last 3 years the Fisita Worldcup tries to answer this question. Obviously this wasn´t the answer everybody was looking for.

So a still unanswered question. For us the answer should be based on a ranking list, comparing to the ATP (Tennis World ranking) or the PGA Tour. Every Player can´t play any Tournament.

So the team behind the ranking list made uncounted numbers of calculations with different factors etc. and developed the formula.

This one is not fixed and can be changed during the next years. For that we need the input of the discussions.

Neverless i think this ranking is the best attempt to answer the question everybody is asking.

I need to answer a couple of other questions, teams asking in preparation to next years event.
But please go on with the discussion.

Frank

I must have come across this just after it Frank posted it as there were no replies, didn't lay still for lomg! I had a read the stats back to the mid nineties and it seems a pretty fair assesment, Someone has put some serious effort into creating an accurate rating system. Must have something to do with all that snow and ice and long nights.....
Anyway it seems pretty accurate, RMIT were ranked #1 from late 2006 until late 08 and that sits fine with me
Any team could climb into the top 10 fairly quickly with no dnf,s and good consistant pointscores.
Cheers

Here are a few thoughts from me. In my opinion you can't critisize that it pulls you down, if you don't finish some events, although you have a fast car. That's motorsport. Of course a lot of accidents are just bad luck (for example if a chain brakes). But very often there are also reasons for failures, for example a lack of testing time, because a car was finished to late.
And also the number of the events is ok I think. If you just participate in the three European events, you have six events in two years. There are a lot of teams who do that.
At the beginning of this threat someone asked for points per dollars spent. That's nonsense, because first of all it is impossible to get to know that. And there are a lot of cars, which are much more expensive than ours I think. If you take a look at it, you won't see that much of fancy expensive features, most of it is pretty much standard.
In my opinion this ranking is a great thing (not only because we are first). The only thing I dislike is that the last event counts extremely much compared to older ones. RMIT got from 1 to 22 at one single competition. It was a very bad competition for them in Australia but they schould have stayed in the top10 I think. On the other hand the factor for competitivness of the event is 0.85 in the worst case. That means that the first place of RMIT in 2007 at FS UK doesn't count very much, but a first in Japan or Italy very much, if you haven't done any competitions since then.

I never said it'd be easy to get the budget information. I just would like to see it. We have a low budget comparatively, and we do okay. It would give you more information. Cost of the car is only part of the budget - the rest affects what kind of research you can do.

I don't expect it to affect the rankings, I just want to see how much money the top teams operate on.

One thing I think one should do is not just take a look at the top 10 Frank posted. The actual list is a 425 page PDF file of ALL the schools competed in ALL the events since 1991, and how they are ranked based on their formula after every single one of the events. The formula puts emphasis on how much competition a school competes, and how recent their latest event was. There was a saying I believe that you are only as good as your last race, and this system sorta puts a premium on that. But then they also tried to balance that out by assigning a competitiveness scale of each event, so a team who's first in an event with 20 cars is not ranked the same as a team who's first compare with 120 cars. But I think its a testiment to the competitiveness world wide that all the events is at a very high standard now. As such all the events will have their results counted well in the system. And as such the more you race the better you do on this list. Which is why Stuttgart is kicking everyone's butt since they've pretty much went on a tear since 2007 and they've raced in most of the events in the last 2 years.

I think this kinda goes back to that discussion some had here at the forum that should team compete in more events. Back in the day there was only FSAE Michigan, then there were Australasia and UK, now many others are popping up. Consider most big European schools goes to at the minimum all the events in Europe(UK, Germany, Italy), in this ranking they get more chances to score, and with more recent results. Now in NA we have 3 events now as well, although to be fair it's hard to be registered for all 3 since we have entrant caps and you have preferance into which one you are entered first. Granted if you can't be in all the NA events going abroad will be more expensive, but then that might give the business people more to do. I know in our case we have to raise a certain amount every year just so we can race in UK(or now, Germany).

Its nice to see our school is featured well on this list, as it sorta validates our practice of getting a car done early, and test often, so that by competition it is reliable, and drivers are well practiced for what they do. Certainly makes all the sleepless nights in the shop and early mornings for testing seem to be worth something. I am sure VinceL agrees with me on that one...

It looks like a fantastic system to me, and absolutly should include all your events, good or bad. You make your own luck at events. Ever heard of the 6 P's?
Prior Preperation Prevents Piss Poor Performance

Its a shame for RMIT this wasn't about when they were dominating the world, but I'm sure the new fuel economy rules will make some big changes to the rankings by this time next year!


pete

Go Gators, I'll take 8th on the world list considering we never get to race outside of Michigan :-(