Just over a month ago, the Warwick Formula Student team had the most successful performance at the IMechE Formula Student competition that Warwick has seen. After 9 years of competing the WFS team, in the W10, completed all events, came 7^th in the UK and 22^nd overall. Against over 80 other universities, many of whom have larger teams and budgets, this was the high level of success the team had worked so hard for.

The team of 12 were put together in October 2009, a group of final year Engineering students from disciplines of Mechanical, Automotive and Manufacturing Engineering. The design came together quickly; in around 12 weeks, and the first stage of manufacturing began on the 5^th of December. With the steel spaceframe, welded by the students, completed by Easter the car began to take shape. On the 12^th of July the car was completed with all systems tested in modules and ready to allow driver testing.

The 3 days before the competition were spent testing the car, allowing the drivers to gain experience and all systems to be tested as a cohesive unit. The testing proved the car and the team headed to Silverstone on the 14^th of July ready to compete.

Thursday the 15^th saw the start of the IMechE FS events and due to good planning the WFS team booked their place 13^th in the queue for scruitineering. By 3pm the team had passed all the scruitineering challenges including a rule, safety and driver egress check. The car was then put through its paces in the tilt, noise and brake test, passing first time and completing the static analysis of the car by 9am on Friday morning.

The team then spent Friday morning doing a photo shoot for Warwick University press and high speed video filming with Airbus. The afternoon provided the presentation challenges, with the team highly successful; coming 5^th in the cost event and 17^th in the business presentation.

Saturday marked a busy day with the first dynamic events; skid pad and acceleration in the morning and sprint in the afternoon. The car fared well in the skid pad under the control of driver Matt Wakelin and achieved a time of 5.02 seconds in the acceleration event with Ashley Pearce, the Project Manager, taking the drive. The car was restricted by its close ratioed gear box which will be a definite area of improvement for the W11. The sprint was driven by Mark Cousins and Matt Wakelin which put a time on the board and gave the team a morning slot for the endurance on Sunday.

The Sunday endurance saw Warwick come 3^rd after the morning group of around 30 cars, with only 11 completing the 22km test. At the end of the day, with hit cones and fuel economy taken in to account, Warwick managed 22^nd out of over 80 cars.

With only 20 teams completing all events, the consistency and reliability of the Warwick car allowed an overall 22^nd place and a UK 7^th. The team would like to thank all of its sponsors who enabled this achievement.

The W10 have now graduated but the W11 team has been selected. For more information please contact j.haythornthwaite@warwick.ac.uk