Surrey students storm Silverstone with their class-topping electric racing car

Against competition from 118 university teams (Class 1 and Class 2) from the UK and across the globe, Team SURTES – the University of Surrey entry into the Institute of Mechanical Engineering run event, backed by F1 supremo Ross Brawn – achieved a number of impressive accolades. The team is made up entirely of University of Surrey undergraduate engineering students.

Team SURTES’s advanced electric racing car:

• Successfully completed the 22 lap endurance event – covering 22km – achieving a top score of 100 points to win the Most Efficient Class 1 Car, averaging 0.053kg of CO₂ per lap.
• Was ranked as the best UK Electric Vehicle Team, and the number 3 Electric Vehicle Team globally
• Took the crown in the prestigious Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains Best High Voltage implementation category.

The Surrey team were delighted to have their car signed by former Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button, who was also supporting the event.

Dr. Hartavi Karci, Coordinator of the Formula Student Team, said:

“We are incredibly proud of our students, whose work over the last year has been richly rewarded by such high profile recognition at this global event. Just by participating in the event and the work needed to get there, all of these students have dramatically increased their chances of securing employment in the automotive industry. By winning all these accolades, their chances have been enhanced further – and indeed many of the team have already secured jobs in the advanced engineering sector.

“Because the Team SURTES entry is a high performance electric vehicle, I am confident that our research and the top-class students we are educating for the future will go on to play a vital part in work to reduce the carbon footprint of car travel in the future. Events like this that push boundaries make a huge contribution to the development of the domestic and commercial electric vehicles of the future.”

Team Leader for Surrey’s SURTES team and University of Surrey student Abhishek Shah Alias Sangani said:

“The Formula Student competition gives us an excellent real-world engineering experience. Our team philosophy was ‘If you cannot test it, you cannot improve it’ – a perfect fit with the challenges we are set by our course leaders. This was an exceptional learning opportunity which has given me great confidence to face any engineering challenge that might come my way during my professional career. We are truly grateful for the support from our coordinator, workshop staff and our supervisors.”