IIT Bombay student racing team wins big at Formula Student UK

Formula Student is Europe’s most established educational engineering competition organised by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers-- a global association of mechanical engineers

The student racing team of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay is the first Indian team to win in the overall winners category at an international Formula Student competition.

The team entered the competition with its latest car E-12, which is the 12th version of the car which has been made in conjunction with industry giants such as NRB Bearings and Mahle. (Sourced)

The team secured the overall winner position at the Formula Student United Kingdom. Formula Student is Europe’s most established educational engineering competition organised by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers-- a global association of mechanical engineers.

The race is held at the Silverstone circuit in England. However, with travel restrictions to the UK due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the student team from IIT Bombay participated in the event virtually for the second consecutive year.

“We couldn’t go to the UK for dynamic events, so we took part in the concept class competition, which was meant for teams that couldn’t travel and had only static (virtual) events,” said Asit Karmakar, assistant manager of the racing team at IIT Bombay.

Apart from the win in the overall category, the team also topped the design event of the competition, beating 64 teams from 18 countries. The team defended its title in the category last year.

Shaurya Sarna, project manager of the team, said, “We learn so many concepts and develop our fundamentals, but this is where we apply them. Towards the competition, we knew what was at stake. These competitions are not to show the best design or business plans you have, but to prove that sound reasoning was involved while making them. This helped us put our best foot forward and transfer all the knowledge from the graduating batch to the next one. We dearly wished for this to happen at Silverstone, but the feeling of making our country proud made us feel content.”

The team entered the competition with its latest car E-12, which is the 12th version of the car which has been made in conjunction with industry giants such as NRB Bearings and Mahle. The car has a space frame chassis with carbon fibre body panels. It is a rear-view drive design and the car produces 800Nm of torque and weighs 230k. The car accelerates from 0-100km/hr in 3.11 sec with top speed reaching 150km/hr.