Mobil 1 Team Sussex aiming for the top

The 2012 University of Sussex Formula Student team are aiming to break into the top 20 of the competition, after an encouraging result last year when Mobil 1 Team Sussex came 34th out of more than 76 competing teams.

The team comprises eight fourth-year Mechanical Engineering students (David Foster, Alex May, Daniel Payne, Reza Rafizadeh-Farahani, Daniel Sackey, Martin Soeding, Vasileios Thalassinos and Ben Verrecchia), 11 third-year Engineering students and five Product Design students.

Formula Student is like Formula 1 for students: it involves engineering students from across the world pitting their wits against each other to design and build a race car to compete in a range of events at Silverstone racing circuit from Thursday 12–Sunday 15 July.

The scale of the challenge that faces the team is a big one. The main hurdle for Mobil 1 team Sussex - especially this year - is that their budget is just a fraction of many of their competitors’ budgets, so there is a great need to create sponsorship and interest. Students, lecturers, everyone can get involved.

A prestigious competition such as Formula Student has interest from major multinational companies such as Airbus, Shell and Jaguar.

The team is also raising money for the Help for Heroes charity with the support of their patron, Johnson Beharry VC. The team has a ’nosecone club’: £5 of any amount donated over £10 goes to charity and the individual can have their photograph taken on the nosecone of the car.

Aside from the opportunity this competition offers for the team members individually, it is also a greater opportunity to inspire young people to study engineering, so the team are registered as Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics ambassadors with STEM Sussex and will be talking to local schools about Formula Student and engineering in general.

You can find out more about the team by emailing fs.teamsussex [a] hotmail.co (p) uk , Mobil 1 Team Sussex on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/teamsussex and following on Twitter @Mobil1Sussex.


The team showing of last year’s car in Library Square.





By: Daniel Sackey
Last updated: Monday, 6 February 2012

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