FSG Hockenheim 2008 Competition: - Updates, Pictures, Stories, and More.

[HenningO]

Car is somewhere in Denmark right now, most of the team flies out early tomorrow morning.

Looking forward to seeing everyone down there!

[Dennis Seichter]

We just hit 70,0 kW on the dyno - 0,1 more than Stuttgart and TU Graz http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Dennis Seichter]

Current results:

Business Plan Results:
1. Delft
2. Stuttgart
3. Eindhoven
4. Uni Karlsruhe http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif
5. Padova
6. Darmstadt
7. Wien
8. Braunschweig
9. Oxford Brookes
10. Johanneum Graz

Special Awards:
Best use of electronics: FH Zwickau
Style Event: Bayreuth
Suspension Award: Montreal
Best prepared team for scrutineering: Bergakademie Freiberg

More news and pics available in german on www.ka-raceing.de (http://www.ka-raceing.de) in the News section

[Thrainer]

Acceleration and Skidpad were finished two hours ago... where are the results? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

On the Ka Racing website, the fastest skidpad runs were posted. I believe not the fastest time for one circle counts, but the average of the left and right circle.

[Dennis Seichter]

First results after all Statics, Skid Pad and Acceleration (missing Design and Cost Finals, all finalists assumed to have maximum points):

1. Stuttgart
2. Braunschweig
3. Toronto
4. Turin
5. Joanneum Graz
6. ETS Montreal
7. Bayreuth
8. TU Munich
9. Rochester RIT
10. Oxford Brookes

More comprehensive information again avaliable at www.ka-raceing.de (http://www.ka-raceing.de)

[RacingManiac]

Go Toronto....they seem to be doing ok.....http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[JR @ CFS]

watching www.formulastudent.tv (http://www.formulastudent.tv)

Bloody fantastic! Why don't all events have this! Trust the Germans to have this sorted http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

How are KTH getting on? University of Ulster also?

[JR @ CFS]

Accel results posted;

http://www.formulastudent.de/uploads/media/2008_FSG_Com...tion_Acc_Results.pdf (http://www.formulastudent.de/uploads/media/2008_FSG_Competition_Acc_Results.pdf)

[Osth]

Trust the Germans to have this sorted

Offcourse Jonnie. Makes me think of what one famous German once said (with a slight accent): We need more power!

[Chris Lane]

How is Stuttgart lapping so fast?!?

Excellent little race this is! TU Delft and Stuttgart going head to head on a clean track!

Every lap is a fastest lap!

[Chris Lane]

Stuttgart stops 1/2 a lap from the endurance finish! A mechanical failure of some sort.

TU Delft and Lions both finished as well.

Very unlucky for Stuttgart.

EDIT: Broken chain!

[JR @ CFS]

Unfortunately Stuttgart out. Stopped half a lap from the end with a broken chain. Poor guys because it was a FANTASTIC drive. It's been great watching it on www.formulastudent.tv (http://www.formulastudent.tv) and it will be interesting to see who will do it now.

[RacingManiac]

I think looking over the results I am guessing Delft got it.....

Such bad luck for Stuttgart, again to have your fantastic car to be stopped by a $50 part....

BTW this formulastudent.tv thing is brilliant...they need to have this streaming for all comp...

A shoutout to the Toronto guys, 7th enduro finish in a row...good job....

[JR @ CFS]

Must also note that the Esslingen car was the only car out there that sounded beautiful...like a porsche GT3 car or a group b rally car! What does that Mahle engine weigh and how good is it on fuel (given the new regulations)?

Well done to everyone (finishing or not) and enjoy the party tonight. Sorry I couldn't be there for the free beer!

[JR @ CFS]

1st Delft
2nd Lions Racing
3rd TU Graz

[RacingManiac]

Congrats to Delft, I believe this is the first one for them, definitely a long time coming....

[ben]

Great competition as always. Congrats to Delft if a team deserved an overall win it's them.

I failed to get anything done yesterday at home once the live feed went up! Stuttgart's endurance run was incredible, terrible luck at the end.

Who was the UK commentator BTW?

Ben

[Thrainer]

Congratulations to Delft for the win, and to AMZ ETH Zurich for the great endurance finish.

I've put together two videos using the live streaming. It's one lap of autocross and most of the endurance for Maloja #33. I know the quality is horrible, but it's better than nothing (like from Silverstone).
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=Weberseon

[RacingManiac]

Originally posted by ben:
Great competition as always. Congrats to Delft if a team deserved an overall win it's them.

I failed to get anything done yesterday at home once the live feed went up! Stuttgart's endurance run was incredible, terrible luck at the end.


Who was the UK commentator BTW?

Ben

I watched the award ceremony, I think it was actually Craig Dawson from the Brookes....

Bloody good work....http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[repeatoffender]

Originally posted by Thrainer:
Congratulations to Delft for the win, and to AMZ ETH Zurich for the great endurance finish.

I've put together two videos using the live streaming. It's one lap of autocross and most of the endurance for Maloja #33. I know the quality is horrible, but it's better than nothing (like from Silverstone).
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=Weberseon

I would have to agree with you there. Where are all the pics????????????? some years ago you couldnt scroll past a post without being abused by all the pictures. And that was the kind of abuse one could get used to!

We the f are all the pictures??

[cmeissen]

Originally posted by RacingManiac:

Such bad luck for Stuttgart, again to have your fantastic car to be stopped by a $50 part....


What failed on Stuttgart's car?

[Chris Lane]

The Chain apparently

[RacingManiac]

Originally posted by repeatoffender:

We the f are all the pictures??

People who took pics graduated? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[mok]

Just to confirm it officially: Yes, it was the chain that broke and stopped us 1/2 a lap from winning one of the toughest competitions we've ever attended. We don't know why it happened... perhaps one could say it was just bad luck. At least you can be sure that Stuttgart is going to use a whole lot more chains in the upcoming seasons ;-)

Coming to the question why we were able to go that fast: The car was just great, I still had some issues with a bit of too much understeer (I was the first driver), but I'm sure I'm complaining on a pretty high level - there's always something to improve. We already had some problems in the autrocross where a tripod popped out of the housing during my first lap. Luckily we could fix it in time (took us about an hour) and I was able to set the second fastest lap - 3 hundredths of a second slower than Braunschweig and 4 hundredths quicker than Delft. How close ist that!

Big congratulations to the top three: Delft definitely deserves that victory, scoring 400 points in endurance and fuel! Braunschweig was pretty quick as always and managed to score in all of the dynamics despite of several frame welding sessions. I'm especially happy to see these guys win design. And finally the TU Graz who managed to gain a lot of positions with a very good endurance run.

The competition itself was well organised as it has ever been. The only bad thing was the long downtime during the lunch break in the endurance. But I'm sure the officials know that already and will make sure it doesn't happen again. Thanks for providing us with such a great event!

[Kimmo Hirvonen]

Originally posted by RacingManiac:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by repeatoffender:

We the f are all the pictures??

People who took pics graduated? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think RacingManiac might have a point therehttp://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif
Although this year I was back in action after one year break in FS/FSAE circles.
I was one of the "official" photographers and that's why I haven't published any shots on my own site. If I remember correctly, in some point there were way over 4000 pics taken by the organisation and you can imagine that getting those pics sorted out will take quite some time. But I guarantee that in the near future there will be some great shots at the FSG-website.

And what comes to the competition itself...speechless... This year even the weather was almost perfect.
Everything ended to undoubtedly the most entertaining enduro-final I've ever seen and again to awesome Mahle-party!

[C.Zinke]

I attended every FSG now. 2007 I thought there is no way to make a better competition. But this year FSG was absolutely amazing. First there was the Sprint run of Mike Rockenfeller and Bernd Schneider, two impressive DTM race driver in Stuttgart's an Munich's car from 2007. Especially Mike did a great job with a time of 53.7 . Its was unbelievable to see high professionals driving a Formula Student car. It was even better to see some teams being faster than them ;o) . Michael, I think we did a good job beating them in Autocross! ;o)

Next Highlight for me was the Design finals. Its was so great to have so many very good Design Jugdes. Of course there were Pat Clarke, Steve Fox, David Gould an Claude Rouelle. But there were also so many other impressive people working in the motorsports industry. We were pushed into the Design finals, although our car weights 232kg. I am really thankful for that because this gave us the chance to explain our car in detail. And now we are really happy being winner of the design finals this year. It was a great feeling that Steve Fox took every chance to look at our car in practice area or on track.

The endure "finals"� were also nice. The best think about that was that Delft, Stuttgart and we were direct competitors. With all our problems in the drive train on Saturday I think this was the most exciting endure for our team.
At the end I would like to congratulate Delft for their performance. Have a look at the results. Its amazing to see the level of the competition this year.

FSG Overall (http://www.formulastudent.de/uploads/media/2008_FSG_Competition_Overall_Results.pdf)

At the end some words regarding Claude. I know that some teams do not like him. My opinion (after having talked to him many hours) is that he likes to provoke. But he really is interested in good discussions and after this weekend I can conclude, that it was also really helpful for me talking to him.

Regards

Christopher

[Raf]

Originally posted by RacingManiac:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by repeatoffender:

We the f are all the pictures??

People who took pics graduated? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Or they didn't have any time yet to sort out their pics and post them http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif.
Here is a small selection from my pictures. Currently only from Sunday. I have many more pictures from the weekend, if a team wants to have some of the pictures just send me a message and I'll have a look if I have pics from your team.

http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/4458/pict5371tv5.th.jpg (http://img387.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pict5371tv5.jpg)http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/7717/pict4731ko9.th.jpg (http://img387.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pict4731ko9.jpg)http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/1604/pict4760md5.th.jpg (http://img530.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pict4760md5.jpg)
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/8492/pict4855ea3.th.jpg (http://img98.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pict4855ea3.jpg)http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/7331/pict4992ns4.th.jpg (http://img504.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pict4992ns4.jpg)http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/7856/pict5019uo1.th.jpg (http://img528.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pict5019uo1.jpg)
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/4265/pict5122bu6.th.jpg (http://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pict5122bu6.jpg)http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/1744/pict5174yy7.th.jpg (http://img147.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pict5174yy7.jpg)http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/9323/pict5181gk5.th.jpg (http://img148.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pict5181gk5.jpg)
http://www.imageshack.us/thumbnail.png (http://img369.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pict5194pk7.jpg)http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/5758/pict5354cl8.th.jpg (http://img367.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pict5354cl8.jpg)

[HerbertD]

Originally posted by C.Zinke:
At the end some words regarding Claude. I know that some teams do not like him. My opinion (after having talked to him many hours) is that he likes to provoke. But he really is interested in good discussions and after this weekend I can conclude, that it was also really helpful for me talking to him.


Maybe that's true, that he is interested in good discussions and that's good.
Nevertheless as we all know FS/FSAE is for learning. Not just the preparations for the events. Also the event itself should help you to learn from the judges in the several static events.
I heard the following story. One was asked a question from Claude and didn't know the right answer. Afterwards he asked what would have been the right answer and Claude replied "If you had been in my seminar you would have known the answer" and went off.

In my opinion that's not the right manner from a judge. I think when there is a situation to answer questions, then at the FS/FSAE competitions. His answer ws like an advertisment for his OptimumG seminar.

...just my opinion....

[Thomas MuWe]

For me, it was a great comp. Of course it was unbelievable stressful.
I just want to congrat all teams - those who participated and of course those which finished endu. The endu was not just for Stuttgart a dramatic race. The Bayreuth car with a broken wishbone, the Stralsund car with an amazing performance until they had to stop, the Oxford Brookes team. That is just what I saw.
Also for us it was not the best weekend.
At sunday morning we had some problems with starting the hot engine. Then as the first team in the afternoon session we started the engine and because of some electronic problems the engine went off. Stuttgart helped us with a new relay (thanks for that) and the engine ran again just in time.
For me it was cool to see our car ran in front of the amazing crowd, our sponsors and all the spectators. Of course we had no chance to catch up the 2 min penalty we got running out of order. Overall we finished 15th, but are quite proud to gain 3 awards and to finish the endu.
Special congrat to our neighbours from the other side of the river(TU Graz) and our competitors in the capital of Austria(TU Vienna) - great job.
And about the Aftershow party I do not want to say that much words despite off: "I do not want to change my jacket - sorry Delft!":-)

joanneum racing graz,
suspension jr08

[screwdriver]

Congratulations to the winners. I'd also like to doff my hat to the team from Stuttgart for their amazing performance. You guys do have my sympathy.

Also a big thank you to the organizers of the event. Although there were some things that need some major reconsideration (like the high prices for the food and drinks in the marquee), I think the competition was awesome and worth the stress and hardships to get our car ready.

Talking about our car - I don't think anybody noticed us, but we were there. (Well except for Pat Clarke maybe, who took care of our team twice.) Things didn't go that well for us in this season so far as Hockenheim showed once again. The car arrived Friday in the morning just past midnight. In the first scruteneering session, the judges found a problem with our steering column which took us another night-shift to fix. Friday and Saturday saw us failing noise three times over. Saturday during the autocross, we were in the engine test area trying to fix our noise problem as something on the oil-pump broke. We then decided against trying to fix the problem because we used our dyno-engine in the car and dismantling it at comp would most likely ruin it because we were missing most of our tools. Our replacement engine didn't have the complete assemby, so a simple engine swap wouldn't do either.
There's no reason to be unhappy though, since it was the taking part that mattered for us. We're looking forward to the competition in Italy next month.

[Peter Jakowski "Mac Gyver"]

Hello Teams!

First of all thank you for beeing in hockenheim this year. We know that every event will be some kind of stress. We know that becaus we did it as a student several times.
For us this event was also stress, ok we had hollidays from daily bussines, but when we see all teams working hard (e.g. when we went to bed at 2:00 a.m. and some teams sill working)
and having fun (like on the mahle party or delft party later on) than we every year decide to do it again...

@ screwdriver: we know that the prices are high but we have to take the foodcorner. (we dont get any money from the food) I think the teams will find a solution for that.

Thanks to all Teams!!!

Peter

[SLK]

First off, congrats to Delft on the win, you guys have an awesome car and it was good to see you have some better luck in enduro than you had in the US this year. I was watching the endurance event on the web, wishing the Wisconsin team was there, and I couldn't believe it when the Stuttgart car stopped 1/2 lap short. We can definitely relate after being disqualified last year at FSG when a brake bleeder screw came loose and we were leaking brake fluid. So disappointing when it's something so small that takes you out of the running.

I am hoping the Wisconsin team can make the trip to Germany in 2009, it was a great time last year and it looks like the competition is just going to get tighter every year!

[Kevin Thomassen]

Some pictures:

http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/13/dut-08-op-hockenheimring/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/stuttgart-in-action/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/staff-girls-of-fsg/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/delft-on-speed/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/final-fsg-stuttgart-braunschweig-and-delft/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/carpark-after-endurance/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/final-stuttgart-vs-delft/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/stuttgart-on-speed/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/lap-time-clean-machine-12m435sec/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/tu-graz-in-action/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/eth-zurich/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/ets/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/birmingham/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/ets-in-front-of-fsg-forum/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/close-up-oxord-driver/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/dresden-during-acc/

[Kevin Thomassen]

More pictures:

http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/delft-on-acc/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/stralsund-during-skid-pad/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/ets-on-auto-x/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/birmingham-on-auto-x/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/impression/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/impression-2/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/broken-suspension/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/darmstadt/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/darmstadt-2/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/rochester/
http://www.nufoto.nl/2008/08/14/delft-on-auto-x/

[Wesley]

One of these days when Oklahoma has some money we'll come across the pond.

The level of competition is incredible!

Also, as for Claude, he has very high expectations and can be a bit brusque. But if you take his criticism and discuss things intelligently with him (and aren't afraid to explain yourself,) sometimes he'll let a little gleaming gem out.

We ran into him at the Country Buffet in California and had a pleasant conversation from racecars to politics. Plus the jokes. Gotta love the jokes.

[C.Zinke]

Here are a "few" pictures: Great job!

http://www.formulastudent.de/events/event-2008/gallery/

[MH]

Well, first a big thanks to the organizers, judges and sponsors of the event. What an amazing job, they really set an example how such an event should be organized. The facilities, the packed grandstands (how on earth do you get 4000 visitors??), the publicity, the DTM drivers gig, the staff, the live stream!!! etc etc... I can go on for hours.
The thing that suprises me every year is that they actually want our feedback to improve their event. The fact that they start the event with "the top 10 feedback from last year"� and the solutions for that, proves it. It's all about attitude http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_cool.gif

Congrats to Braunschweig Lions for overcoming their problems, scoring heavily on statics and finishing very close second overall. TU Graz made a big comeback by putting in a strong endurance, I believe the difference was less than 10 seconds. Very sorry to see good teams fail on enduro, like Oxford Brookes and Torino.
There were a lot of strong teams out there, just look at the scores. We still can't believe we won, especially after such an amazingly exciting "final"�. After a long delay, being out there with the top 3 cars (I was the first Delft driver) is something I'll remember for a long time. As if it was a movie script with a dramatic ending.

Hats off for Stuttgart, I believe they were on their way to a record amount of points until the chain broke. Take it from a team that failed to finish enduro a couple of times while leading the field, we know how much it hurts. We won the competition, but they won everybody's sympathy. I just wish we could compete with them (and others!) in Italy and Australia.

To Craig Dawson: you made every lap that much more enjoyable with your great comments! SAE should hire you for all their comps http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Thanks to all teams for their congrats and for visiting our after-party. I can honestly say I've never seen so many drunk people wearing so many different team-shirts on a campsite.

I hope next year's comp will be every bit as exciting as this one, hopefully more overseas teams will make it as well. Just ask ETS, RIT and Toronto for their opinion about the crazy european competition.

Cheers,
Miki Hegedus
Delft University of Technology

[terra_dactile]

Ths FSG event made everyone involved very proud, just looking at the amount of people present for the awards ceremonys, the dynamics events and the format used for the endurance were they saved the best teams for last was just amazing.

Hats off to Delft for their great presence, they had everyone scared in Detroit this year and now they finally got to show how strong of team they really are!

Stuttgart were on record pace, 588 points from 600 before the final endurance event, its just unheard of, the last time a team destroyed the field like that was a few year ago in FSAE Australasia where RMIT had like 950 or 960 points overall I believe. Like Delft mentioned however all great teams have seen the overall win ripped from their hand during the endurance event, FStudent 2007 we passed Stuttgart's 2nd driver during the endurance event to unrim our tire 20 seconds later! Heart breaking but all part of racing. None the less Stuttgart made the competition great, their drivers skill was spectacular, winning the acceleration event with out launch or traction control is impressive to say the least.

TU Braunschweig, What an amazing car to see on the track during the Autocross, the advantage of ABS on a tight track is evident, throwing the car into the corners, the braking points were hardly visible. A great job dynamically but also congradulations for an imressive pressence in the design event.

What I found great about FS Germany was the Cost event, we did not have a cheap car, we prepared a great presentation,did a miticulous job in the report and pulled out almost 92 points, in other events you have to have a rediculously non competitive designed cheap car to win that many points in cost.

The design judges were insane, everyone of them had some sort of motorsport experience and pushed our knowledge further then ever before!

In all it was by far the best event I have seen, not as many teams as Detroit, but more top teams that are strong in statics & dynamics which is what is necessary for the overall win.

We will deffinatively return to FSG next year, I just hope that all the European teams make it to FSAE EAST next year as well.

Jude Berthault
ETS car #6 FSG 2009
Team leader

[Jan_Dressler]

Congrats to the teams and everybody else, what an event!

Although nobody might have noticed us (finishing on some 19th place), Karlsruhe UAS was also there http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif
And although our "baby tank" was way too heavy, it was reliable at least (didn't have a single mechanical problem), nice to look at, and some 53:xxx laptimes in the enduro were not too bad.

http://www.formulastudent.de/fileadmin/user_upload/all/...Reichmann_1_80pc.jpg (http://www.formulastudent.de/fileadmin/user_upload/all/2008/pics/FSG08//20080808_Friday/FSG2008-08-08_17-52-44_0_Reichmann_1_80pc.jpg)
http://www.formulastudent.de/fileadmin/user_upload/all/..._Hanselmann_80pc.JPG (http://www.formulastudent.de/fileadmin/user_upload/all/2008/pics/FSG08//20080810_Sunday/07-20/FSG2008-08-10_17-22-14_09_Hanselmann_80pc.JPG)

See you in Italy!

Jan

Jan Dressler
Karlsruhe UAS Car #99
Team Engine / Dry Sump

[Horace]

Jan,

That's a really nice looking body!!

Can I ask what's the wheelbase?

[Mike Hart]

It was a great competition for us. Admittedly, it was a bit of a shame that despite finishing everything again for the second time this year (making the first time we've ever made a car that has finished more than one endurance in our 11 year history) we only came 21st, but the level of competition was just something else! We lost out a little in the dynamic events since our tyres are still in development. Ben at Dunlop has done a brilliant job to get the tyres as good as they are in such a short time with such limited testing and with a bit more work from our team and them I think they'll be well up there with the Avons.

For me, the highlight was the endurance and being able to give it everything in the knowledge that the car was as solid as anything. I had some great fun, it was just a shame we weren't on the ultimate pace. I was happy with a 54.009, but it would have been nice to be up there with Herts in the 51s which the car could be capable of with some more development. I guess one's goalposts move when endurance no longer seems like the huge hurdle it once was!

It was good of Claude to come up to me afterward and congratulate me on my 'interesting driving style'. He said he like it though http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif LOL

On the whole, the whole of FSG was as brilliant as last year. I do however feel that perhaps a little more training should be given to the marshalls as there were a couple of occasions they put themselves in rather a lot of danger, most notably after Turino blew up with about 10 of them all standing on the exit of the fast right hander that led onto the final straight. If one of the cars had understeared out, it would have wiped about 5 of them out. Not good! It wasn't helped by some rather slow flag signals. Most notably then for the red and yellow flag. It took about 2 laps! I was also caught out by a late flag call on the start/finish when Zwickau spun and recieved a black flag despite taking what I felt was the safest action at the time. There was a car and a marshall standing in the track, so going off course to avoid them seemed by far the most sensible thing to do. Thankfully, Frank understood afterwards that I had taken the right action given the lateness of the yellow flag and removed any penalty. Hopefully next year, some further advice to the flag marshalls could avoid such an incident again.

[Jan_Dressler]

Hi Horace,

if I remember correctly our wheelbase is 1670mm. Not the shortest, but weight was a bigger problem http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Jan

Jan Dressler
Karlsruhe UAS Car #99
Team Engine / Dry Sump

[Kimmo Hirvonen]

It took some time but here's a gallery that should contain the best shots I took during the four days at the site:
http://hirppa.kuvat.fi/kuvat/FSAE/FSG08/Best_of/

Most of them can be found from the FSG's website but for what I know, those aren't (yet) RAW-processed.

If you would like to get the original sized RAW/jpg-files, email address can be found from the link above.

[ben]

Originally posted by Mike hart:
It was a great competition for us. Admittedly, it was a bit of a shame that despite finishing everything again for the second time this year (making the first time we've ever made a car that has finished more than one endurance in our 11 year history) we only came 21st, but the level of competition was just something else! We lost out a little in the dynamic events since our tyres are still in development. Ben at Dunlop has done a brilliant job to get the tyres as good as they are in such a short time with such limited testing and with a bit more work from our team and them I think they'll be well up there with the Avons.

Hi Mike. That's a very fair assessment of where we're at and your efforts are much appreciated. 12th in skidpad shows we're not a million miles away - new construction and compound should be ready to test when you guys get back in the autumn. You're also getting to see and participate in a development partnership similar to what we do in LMS, which was almost equally what I wanted to achieve. I'm looking forward to next season.

My perception at the moment is the construction is pretty much there, small change in lateral stiffness coming. Compound needs the most work I think.

If I'm honest LMS tyres are easier than this at the moment because the compound requirements are so out of any ballpark we usually work in :-)

Ben

[Mike Hart]

I think it's a shame the Herts boys weren't prepared to tough it out, but then everyone's objectives are different I suppose. At the end of the day, we only managed 1 test session with you on the new compound so it was always going to be difficult! Were you aware that the car in fact set the fastest time overall in one direction on the skid pan? 5.04 or something silly like that which was quicker than Brookes managed. Sadly (most likely due to setup) we did a 5.4 in the other direction! The grip must be there though in steady state.

I would agree the compound is the bit that needs the work. The construction feels fine to me. It is very predictable and much nicer to drive on than the Avons. They were always a bit point and pray. They stick like chewing gum, but I never really liked the way they offered little to no feedback and very soft turn in.

Sadly this is it for me now. I start work at Triumph a week on Monday, but I will be in to help the new guys if they want me. I know Alex Hall did mention he wanted me to come back and drive their new car in the spring to give some feedback. We'll see! Alex has the makings of a really good team leader, so I have fingers crossed they can progress the car a bit further and take setup a little more seriously! Make sure you drill in the importance making sure their setup is consistent and symmetrical if nothing else!

[MH]

Originally posted by Mike hart:
Were you aware that the car in fact set the fastest time overall in one direction on the skid pan? 5.04 or something silly like that which was quicker than Brookes managed. Sadly (most likely due to setup) we did a 5.4 in the other direction! The grip must be there though in steady state.

Don't want to spoil your happiness for the Dunlop tyres, but these are the fastest single lap times on the FSG skidpad:
5,046 Freiberg
5,070 Oxford Brookes
5,077 Stuttgart
5,082 Birmingham

Be careful with your conclusions, 99% of the teams set their fastest laptime in their second timed lap. No secret there: heat in tyre and driver adaptation to track and car take some time.
Also, on the compound conclusion, unless you did back-to-back testing with both new and used tyres from different manufacturers and compounds (on the same day and same conditions!!) there's hardly any sensible thing to say. Especially when you consider that different tyres need different setups.

But it's great that teams and companies work together to make steps forward. Keep up the good work!

cheers,
Miki Hegedus
Delft University of Technology

[Dave Evans]

Originally posted by Mike hart:
It was a great competition for us. Admittedly, it was a bit of a shame that despite finishing everything again for the second time this year (making the first time we've ever made a car that has finished more than one endurance in our 11 year history) we only came 21st, but the level of competition was just something else! We lost out a little in the dynamic events since our tyres are still in development. Ben at Dunlop has done a brilliant job to get the tyres as good as they are in such a short time with such limited testing and with a bit more work from our team and them I think they'll be well up there with the Avons.

If you look at the 21st position in terms of points, our overall score for FSG (610ish) is actually Birmingham's best ever points finish ever, and the second best is the FSUK 2008 result with UBR11. So position aside, we've still made the most successful UBR car ever!

Our skidpad points score was also Birmingham's best ever too!

[Mike Hart]

No, I quite agree. It just shows how competitive FSG was this year! Amazing that 37 cars finished despite being quite a hot day! I believe we're the first team to have actually finished endurance with a competitive time too http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[ben]

Originally posted by MH:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Mike hart:
Were you aware that the car in fact set the fastest time overall in one direction on the skid pan? 5.04 or something silly like that which was quicker than Brookes managed. Sadly (most likely due to setup) we did a 5.4 in the other direction! The grip must be there though in steady state.

Don't want to spoil your happiness for the Dunlop tyres, but these are the fastest single lap times on the FSG skidpad:
5,046 Freiberg
5,070 Oxford Brookes
5,077 Stuttgart
5,082 Birmingham

Be careful with your conclusions, 99% of the teams set their fastest laptime in their second timed lap. No secret there: heat in tyre and driver adaptation to track and car take some time.
Also, on the compound conclusion, unless you did back-to-back testing with both new and used tyres from different manufacturers and compounds (on the same day and same conditions!!) there's hardly any sensible thing to say. Especially when you consider that different tyres need different setups.

But it's great that teams and companies work together to make steps forward. Keep up the good work!

cheers,
Miki Hegedus
Delft University of Technology </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Good points Miki. This was the point I was making about technical partnerships in racing. The reality is that you don't get to buy the tyres from three manufacturers and do a back-to-back test - try it in LMS and see what Michelin give you!

Most of the development comes from entering a technical partnership and working together. You're right to point out that doing a back to back on a given day with a given setup isn't fair because different tyres need different things.

In this sense a technical partnership is like any relationship - it needs to be based on trust that both parties are commited to working towards a common goal.

Ben

[Brett Neale]

I just watched the "Final Minutes" series of videos on FSTV, and one word came to mind - Wow! Braunschweig, Delft, and particularly Stuttgart were so damn fast. And for Stuttgart to lap a second a lap faster than Delft (who already looked fast as hell) is a real credit to Stuttgart and really shows their domination. It's a pity the chain breakage ruined an otherwise record-breaking result, and on the last lap no less...

I'll be moving to the south of Germany in March... so it looks as though next year I'm DEFINITELY going to FSG as a spectator. Judging by the introduction of FSTV and the general consensus that it's bloody well run event, it looks to be the real deal!

[munjalsavla]

first of all, a big thank you to the organisers for putting up a great event.

also a big thanks to all the teams for making it a very competitive and also a very friendly event.

Well, i am from Orion Racing India (the mumbai team as many refer it to).

We had a much better event than last year but the results weren't upto what we were expecting.

We participated in endurance, but couldnt do so in the other dynamic events, thanks to a failed clutch and some other problems.

we were using the sport clutch on a 600F4i and solving the problem took more time than expected.

We hope to come back much stronger next year.

best of luck to all teams for the upcoming events.

Also, thanks to all teams for helping us out when we needed it.

And TU delft, nice party, really enjoyed it, and the office truck that u had, that was cool.

Thanks KA Raceing.

-----------
Munjal Savla,
Team marketing and driver,
Orion Racing India.
www.orion-racing.com (http://www.orion-racing.com)