Bringing together university motorsports, hundreds of teams around the world work in the Formula Student competition series to achieve the best results in the development of its single-seater racing car and the related engineering design and project management. The normal annual schedule is being significantly affected by the coronavirus epidemic, but the Formula Student Symposium, which is gaining more and more international popularity by the year, was organized by Széchenyi István University last weekend, and with no small amount of success. The driving force of the event was again the student-teacher community of the institution.

Project manager Tamás Kolossváry said that although the physical meeting did not take place, students were very much looking forward to the professional event, which was one and a half to two times oversubscribed, with tickets selling out very quickly during the registration period. “The positive benefit of the virtual format is that we don’t have to limit the number of participants to the usual 200-250 due to the location, although because of technical features we still had to limit it to 430 students, and this year 28 international Formula Student teams were represented. Both numbers are records in the history of the event.” explained Mr Kolossváry. The event was joined by students from institutions including the University of San Francisco, United States, the École de Technologie Supérieure Montréal, Canada, the German Technische Universität Berlin, Universität Stuttgart, DHBW Stuttgart and the University of Applied Sciences Esslingen, the Belgian KU Leuven, the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain, the Finnish Metropolia University of Applied Sciences as well as the Czech TU Brno.

The great popularity of the Formula Student Symposium in Győr is not surprising as, thanks to Széchenyi István University’s strong international connections in the field of vehicle engineering, young people were able to learn and ask questions from renowned engineers. Several of them represented the top category in motorsport, Formula 1, including Owen Carless, head of structural analysis at Red Bull Racing, Luca Marmorini, former head of engine development at Ferrari, and Sándor Kling, development engineer at Red Bull.

In addition to internal combustion racing engines, main topics included self-driving systems and electric drives, which play an increasingly important role in the world of Formula Student. There was also a lecture on how the parameters of Formula Student cars can be calculated on a measuring bench, and the data obtained used as feedback in development. In addition, the development and production of composite structural elements related to the topic of car body development was discussed, with the key theme of team management also being given prominence.

At Széchenyi István University a complete team worked to bring European standards to the online arrangements for the Formula Student Symposium. Photo: Péter Németh