2017 FSUK Competiton & FS East Entry List

[GSimmons63]

After the British GP was moved back a week, the FSUK competition was forced to move and as such falls on the same weekend as the FS East competition.

Looking at the registration list for FS East it looks like many teams have deserted FSUK in favour of FS East.

This thread isn't designed to hate on FSUK, as a 4x competitor and now 1x judge of the competition I honestly wish it the best of luck. But I thought it was worth pointing out on here that clearly the damage done in last year's UK competition appears to have had a lasting effect.

Since you have to submit an application to FSUK very early on (early December I think?) I believe it's likely that there will be many teams entered in both competitions, and this could lead to a high drop-out rate in one or the other. I would be keen to hear from some current team members and see what their intentions are before I submit my application to volunteer to judge at UK again, as I probably won't bother if the top teams won't be there.

George

[JulianH]

Zurich, Delft and Rennteam Stuttgart are going to East for sure. Karlsruhe as well
Greenteam is on one of the top slots for the waiting list for East. I expect them to make it to East as well.

There are just too many reasons to not go to the UK.
As you don't want a hate-thread, I won't go into the details but yes, UK is no longer a Tier 1 competition but potentially they finally get their British winner...

[Scott Monash]

I had exactly the same thoughts when I saw the team announcements and registration list for FS-East posted this morning.

At the end of the day, teams are (highly invested) customers of these competitions and when there are so many options to choose from in the European summer, it really becomes a buyers market.

We have all heard very good reports from last year's East and with them stepping up to 60 teams this year and a better track/venue (?) they are now a serious world class option.

Couple that with the dramas seen at FSUK last year, the date overlap and FS-East's choice to side with the new simplified and sensible FSG rule set (incorporating Driveless) it is pretty obvious why the top teams are all trying to go to East.

The closed door FSUK panel selection process is also a pretty scary proposition for many teams.

Will be very interesting to see the final hit that FSUK takes from this, but it looks like it will be significant.
Playing devil's advocate, will FS UK soon become a back-water competition, with only UK teams and a few far flung visitors?

Its going to be interesting to see it all play out, and it will certainly affect future travel plans for many teams.

Scott

PS: Also how good was it to see so many FSG Driveless registrations!
Once again the core group of Teams and Alumni behind the continental FS competitions showing that they can drive this competition forward.

[GSimmons63]

There are just too many reasons to not go to the UK.
As you don't want a hate-thread, I won't go into the details but yes, UK is no longer a Tier 1 competition but potentially they finally get their British winner...

I imagine a UK winner would have the iMechE announce this year's competition a resounding success despite the obvious lack of decent competition.

Apparently the entry fee for this year's competition was £2217. Comparing that to FSG's €750 Euros, and FSH ~€1000 with some reasonable travel costs it would still be cheaper for the UK teams themselves to attend 2 competitions in europe than compete on home soil!

[JulianH]

I imagine a UK winner would have the iMechE announce this year's competition a resounding success despite the obvious lack of decent competition.

Apparently the entry fee for this year's competition was £2217. Comparing that to FSG's €750 Euros, and FSH ~€1000 with some reasonable travel costs it would still be cheaper for the UK teams themselves to attend 2 competitions in europe than compete on home soil!

Absolutely agree on this.

[GSimmons63]

I had exactly the same thoughts when I saw the team announcements and registration list for FS-East posted this morning.

At the end of the day, teams are (highly invested) customers of these competitions and when there are so many options to choose from in the European summer, it really becomes a buyers market.

We have all heard very good reports from last year's East and with them stepping up to 60 teams this year and a better track/venue (?) they are now a serious world class option.

Couple that with the dramas seen at FSUK last year, the date overlap and FS-East's choice to side with the new simplified and sensible FSG rule set (incorporating Driveless) it is pretty obvious why the top teams are all trying to go to East.

The closed door FSUK panel selection process is also a pretty scary proposition for many teams.

Will be very interesting to see the final hit that FSUK takes from this, but it looks like it will be significant.
Playing devil's advocate, will FS UK soon become a back-water competition, with only UK teams and a few far flung visitors?

Its going to be interesting to see it all play out, and it will certainly affect future travel plans for many teams.

Scott

PS: Also how good was it to see so many FSG Driveless registrations!
Once again the core group of Teams and Alumni behind the continental FS competitions showing that they can drive this competition forward.

Given FS East's history and the comments you mentioned above, could the devil's advocate stretch so far as a breakaway competition in the UK in similar fashion?

[Dunk Mckay]

As fun as a breakaway competition might be; before going rogue, we should probably approach the IMechE with these issues, to see if we can't instigate change to the existing competition. I wouldn't be half surprised if most of the people there are blissfully ignorant of our plight, floating around in a silent bubble all of their own. I'd like to at least try to burst that bubble.

We've discussed this a little in the UK Collaborative Network group on FB. So, unless someone with more diplomacy chops steps up to the plate, I'll put a draft proposal together that we can work on. When it's near completion we should aim to get a consensus from the main FSUK stakeholder teams. Following which an online petition be created, which will be 'attached' to the proposal and handing to the IMechE.

[Bemo]

In my opinion it is indeed the case that with the increasing number of competitions in Europe that you can see it as a market of Events with the Teams as customers. Back when I was a Team member there were only three Events in Europe so if you wanted to go to three Events you registered to all of them and that's it.

With a high number of Events and overlapping competition Dates, the Teams have to choose which Events they want to attend. In my opinion there is a clear tendency that Teams prefer competitions which are organised by alumni of FSAE Teams. The Events like UK and Italy are organised by the Engineering organisations and especially in England the Organisation is completely intransparent which is frustrating for the participating Teams.

[JulianH]

As fun as a breakaway competition might be; before going rogue, we should probably approach the IMechE with these issues, to see if we can't instigate change to the existing competition. I wouldn't be half surprised if most of the people there are blissfully ignorant of our plight, floating around in a silent bubble all of their own. I'd like to at least try to burst that bubble.

We've discussed this a little in the UK Collaborative Network group on FB. So, unless someone with more diplomacy chops steps up to the plate, I'll put a draft proposal together that we can work on. When it's near completion we should aim to get a consensus from the main FSUK stakeholder teams. Following which an online petition be created, which will be 'attached' to the proposal and handing to the IMechE.


Believe me Dunk, back in the day, when I was competing, I exchanged dozens of e-mails with the IMechE and nothing(!) helped.
This organization is as stubborn as it gets.
At one point it is just not fun anymore and the teams take their "talent" elsewhere.

Fully agree with Bemo, that alumni run FSAE events clearly outperform the rest; although Spain (which is kind of run from an engineering organization) does a good job to keep it fun.

[Dunk Mckay]

They are indeed stubborn, and exceptionally 'hard of hearing'. But I'm hoping (although perhaps, not expecting) that a communication 'signed' by a large number of people, including plenty of alumni that are chartered members of the institution itself, will carry at least some weight.

If it does indeed fall on deaf ears, then at least word will have spread that teams and alumni are dissatisfied. This would be a starting point for getting people enough people engaged in organising a separate event.

As far as getting one of those off the ground, does anyone on here have any pointers. My first thought was to start by trying to arrange a pre-season dress rehearsal event, with half a dozen teams. Book-out Bruntingthorpe for a weekend and split the costs. Then have alumni turn up to marshall and judge the events.
If all goes well, figure out how to scale up to say 25 teams and go from there.

[StefStam]

FS East has become a great event as of what i have heard. Too bad its in the same week with Formula Student Italy and we cant participate both althoguh getting an invitation from FS East due to being first year team


Stefanos Stamoulis

[sparkmonkey]

According to this
http://www.imeche.org/news/news-article/world-s-best-young-engineers-gear-up-for-formula-student-2017

No German teams at FSUK this year. Not sure why they haven't a full list of teams though

[Thijs]

According to this
http://www.imeche.org/news/news-article/world-s-best-young-engineers-gear-up-for-formula-student-2017

No German teams at FSUK this year. Not sure why they haven't a full list of teams though


I wouldn't be half surprised if most of the people there are blissfully ignorant of our plight, floating around in a silent bubble all of their own. I'd like to at least try to burst that bubble.

I'm not sure if it's ignorance, or if they just don't care.
There is a third option somewhere in the middle: They're aware of teams being unhappy with the course of the competition.
However, they don't act on that knowledge, partly out of conservatism and arrogance (sorry), and partly because their goals do not necessarily align with those of, shall we say, 'German' teams:
To the extent that they do care (and I'm sure plenty of them do), their concern may be more aimed towards providing as many British students as possible with a useful extracurricular activity, as opposed to making sure that the overall level is as high as it can be, or taking care that some European team beats the home teams for the 17th year running by exactly the right margin.

Either way, I think they got the message by now.
Not sure if they intend to do anything with it though.

And yes, I too fully expect an elated tone in the press release if one of the Brits takes it overall, while ignoring that it will have been the least competitive edition of FSUK since 2004 or thereabouts.

Anyway, may the Best British Team win :)

[oebakkom]

We must not underestimate the other competitors. Looking forward to blistering times from the FS powerhouses that is Ecuador, 'Saudi Arablia' etc.
Also, it looks like my old team will drag down something from Norway.

[JulianH]

Just saw the lists of the registered teams... to be frank: This is insane.

The whole "German-Cluster" (Germany, Swiss, Austria, Netherlands (minus The Hague as a rather new team)) and the US that dominated all events in the last years is completely "boycotting".

Wow.

Last year, UK had a competition factor of 0,98. This year it will probably be close to the minimum factor...
Minus the UK teams, I have not found any Top 20 ish team from 2016 that competes.
It's basically UK + "FSAE Developing Countries" + some minor outliers (ETS, Norway/Sweden/Spain guys)". Slap in the face for the IMechE... let's see if they realize this or still just celebrate the first UK winner ever.

http://www.imeche.org/docs/default-source/1-oscar/formula-student/class-1.pdf?sfvrsn=2

[simdens]

Class1 has 94 teams participating
According to my calculations, the current competitiveness of the competition is 0.853
14 Teams were not listed in the world ranking list

[JSR]

Class1 has 94 teams participating
According to my calculations, the current competitiveness of the competition is 0.853
14 Teams were not listed in the world ranking list

And 54 of the teams comes from the United Kingdom.

[Swiftus]

And 54 of the teams comes from the United Kingdom.

Thats ~57% 'home' country schools.

FSAE Michigan is ~76% 'home' country schools for reference, but the country is a fair bit more out of the way than the UK.

FSG this year is ~48% 'home' country schools.

I didn't any schools that might actually consider an event their home event if they weren't from the actual country itself. In every case the 'home' country participation is just going to go up (ie Canada to FSAE Michigan or Netherlands to FSG?)

[Thijs]

Yup, it's pretty brutal, although I guess we sort of saw it coming.

Regarding 'home teams':
FSG-E is pretty German, which isn't surprising. FSE has found more footing in Germany than in most places (60% of the WRL-E top 20 is German)
(even more extreme for FSD: there are only 6 non-German teams in the world right now)
The current FSG-C registration list however is only 34% German.

A far greater difference with FSUK: For both FSE and FSC, the waiting lists are currently longer than the list with registered teams. FSUK has no waiting list (for Class 1 anyway)

some more random observations:
1. I was kind of surprised by the relative enthusiasm from Nordic teams, compared to their neighbors directly to the south: Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland bring a total of 8 teams.
2. Holy crap there's a lot of Egyptian cars. 6 Class 1 teams alone, and an additional 11 on the Class 2 lists!
3. ETS has dropped quite a bit on the WRL last year due to 0 endurance finishes. However, if they do finish endurances, they can fight for top 5 at many competitions. They're pretty far down FSG's waiting list. I wonder how eager they'll be to come all the way to Europe for one event with a ~0.85 competitiveness rating.

[Z]

Harry (Bikas),

I see UoP is going.

WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY!!!

A bit like a runner going to the Olympic Games when it is boycotted by the Kenyans, Ethiopians, Jamaicans, US, China, Russia, Germany...

It'll never be easier to win some gold! :)

Z

[oebakkom]

Yup, it's pretty brutal, although I guess we sort of saw it coming.
1. I was kind of surprised by the relative enthusiasm from Nordic teams, compared to their neighbors directly to the south: Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland bring a total of 8 teams.

It has always been like this. We are much better at English than German, so I think it is natural to feel drawn to FSUK. Nordic teams regards this as their "home race", and some teams even only compete at FSUK.
Also, In Norway at least, Silverstone is a much better marketing term than the other venues.
Regarding this "boycott", I think the Nordic teams are simply out of the loop compared to the "German cluster". For most teams it does not really matter either if the competitiveness isn't the highest, since a top 5/10/x finish will still be considered a good result.

Revolve NTNU should on paper be hard to beat, since they are using the default "OP" electric car concept. They have a history of both botching endurance in weird ways and receiving magic penalties in UK, so you never now.

[Dunk Mckay]

The biggest image problem the competition has is going to get a lot worse this year.

Historically a 50-60% drop-out rate in Endurance can be expected. Although most people can associate that with a half, and then rationalise it by saying at least half of the cars finished.

When that figure goes up to 75%, it's not going to look good.

There is now a question to be asked, for those teams that are now in with a chance of taking home a trophy:
Do you push your team and car to the limits to try to score the most points possible to try to get a win?
OR
Do you build your car like a tank so it doesn't break down, focus on scoring well in statics, and watch the majority of your competitors overwork themselves to an early bath, while you glide comfortably in to a top 5 finish?

[mech5496]

Agree with almost every comment made in this thread. IMO the fact that East, FS Italy and FSUK dates are the same did not help (FS Italy still has open slots in the Electric class!!). We had FSUK and FSG planned for this year since mid-2015, as we operate in a 2-year cycle without major changes. To be honest, we were expecting some teams boycotting FSUK, but not this, which makes us feel weird. Given the fact though that the plan had been communicated with both the Uni and sponsors a while now, we withdraw from East, keeping FSUK. For this year at least....