Swiss and German teams race to victory at Formula Student

Budding engineers in the ETH Zurich team won the Low Carbon Category, at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers' Formula Student (FS) competition at Silverstone, Northants. The overall winner was Germany's Munich team, with the University of Hertfordshire taking the fifth overall spot in the main category, the highest ranking for a UK team in the entire event. FS is Europe's biggest student motorsport event which challenges young engineers to design and build a single seater race car from scratch. There were over 2,500 students from around 30 countries and more than 100 teams at FS which ran from 15-18 July. The top prize for low carbon vehicles was presented to ETH Zurich for its pure electric powered car at an award ceremony in front of thousands of students. The students' cars were put through their paces in a series of dynamic events including Acceleration, Sprint, Skid-Pad and Endurance. The idea behind FS is for each team to work as a phantom company seeking to produce a commercially viable car. Cost, design and presentation were also judged. Michael Naylor, Commercial Manager of the Hertfordshire team, said: "A huge amount of hard work and late nights have gone into our car (pictured), which makes it incredible rewarding to have done well in the competition. This is an excellent and successful start to our careers in engineering."