SUN Racing 2019/20: Formula Student team attend Sheffield showcase as they plot path to Silverstone

University of Sunderland students participating in the SUN Racing programme travelled to Sheffield Hallam University on Wednesday evening to partake in the annual Formula Student Regional Showcase.

Michael Gibson, Jemma Cavendish and Dudley Mahlangu – joined on stage by Nabeel Ali, Joseph Burton, Ziya Cerezci and Dev Nichani – gave a presentation to several other teams from universities across the Yorkshire region, outlining the progress made and methods applied on the car being developed for the year-ending competition at Silverstone in July.

“It was an overall presentation of what we were doing this year and what we’ve done previously to show all that we’ve done as a team, to show the true intention of our teamwork” said team member Jonney Leonard.

The event takes place in late February or early March each year and has also been hosted by Hull and Huddersfield in recent times. It gives each team the opportunity to present while also offering the chance to network, share ideas and solve problems.

Team Captain Michael Gibson reflected this: “It is about building up networks within the whole Formula Student event. It’s very good because the teams that come are very friendly and open.

“At the end of the day, we are still in competition but everybody’s happy to share the ideas and everybody’s happy to showcase all the technicalities within the designs and the cars, you know, it’s not like ‘hush, hush’ or nothing, it’s a good event.”

SUN Racing has become well established within the university in recent years, with any student able to join. “The whole event itself it is obviously an engineering competition but it is open to anybody within Sunderland University,” said Michael.

We fired up car 2 today, still sounding like the beast it was back in July!

Posted by SUN Racing on Wednesday, 12 February 2020

The Sunderland team are taking a slightly different approach this year, with designs and plans for next year’s car well underway as part of a process that will seek to reach a higher level of performance in 2021. The car used in 2019 is being readied again for this year’s competition.

“There’s always little bits that we can pick up on and this allows us to focus on those areas with a little bit more of an intention of bringing the overall team aspect and the scoring aspect up so that we can further better our position within the competition itself,” explained Leonard.

 

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