GCU Racing gear up for Formula Student 2024

Glasgow Caledonian University’s Formula Student team GCU Racing are preparing for their second year competing in Formula Student. The competition is one of Europe’s largest and most notorious educational engineering competitions, where teams from around the world compete to design, develop and build a single-seat race car.

Following their debut last year, which saw them place 54^th out of 63 teams, the team are planning to be highly competitive this year. Having learned from their experience last year and grown considerably in size as a team with now over 60 members, they are enthusiastic about this year’s competition and the future of GCU Racing.

As the team prepare for the competition at Silverstone in July, Technical Director for the team, TJ Scott said: “We’ve got quite a lot of our major components now in with the technicians so we are in a fairly decent position. This time last year we had nothing so we’re much further ahead.”

After showing up to Formula Student in 2023 without a completed car, the team have rallied together to ensure they can produce not only a car to take to the competition, but one that can be competitive. TJ added: “Last year we were struggling to work out how to safely and reasonably produce a race car within the University, whereas this year we’ve managed to work that out and even get spaces on campus where we can work on it safely, so compared to last year we are currently light years ahead.”

Jacob Bamsey, Statics and Finance Director for the team also said: “We’ve had to resolve some health and safety issues but we’ve managed to get students trained by staff on the machines in our workshop to build up competence within the team and trust that we can complete this project.”

The team are looking forward to taking a completed and competitive race car to the competition. TJ said: “From now until the competition it’s really all go from here, we’re about to start sticking tubes in things and not stop until the car starts rolling. We are fully into our production phase so from here on in it’s just time to build.

“It’s really difficult to get into the middle of the leader board in Formula Student but if we get to the middle I’ll be very content. Last year we were 53^rd out of 64 teams but we were also the top British newcomer team and we’ve come a long way so I think we’re in for a shot.”

The team are also developing their Cost and Manufacturing Report, which is worth a fifth of the points available in the competition. Last year they missed out on points in this area due to not being able to accurately assume the cost of the car as it was not completed in time. This year, however, Jacob said his team are producing “a proper, industry-level document that we will be able to present to the judges and we’re really looking forward to that.”

Robbie McGregor, GCU Racing’s Operations Director explained that immediately after the competition last year, the determination and motivation to get started working on a car for 2024 was immediately sky high. He said: “As soon as we were driving back from Silverstone last year people were already asking what they can do to help us get started for 2024 and that motivation and drive has certainly carried over throughout the year.”

Over the last year the team has also grown considerably in size, which has helped boost morale and productivity within the team.

With both newer and older team members working together to develop and build their car for this year, TJ said: “last year when we went down to Silverstone we went down as a bunch of students who were really just messing about and wanted to try and build a race car, but while we were there we really turned into a team.”

He also explained that many of their newer members are in second year, which bodes well for the future of the team as some of their senior members who restarted the team after a hiatus prepare to move on from GCU.  “We’re working on building up our junior members to keep the team going in the future, because unfortunately we are not going to be here forever. The team needs to be sustainable, there’s been a lot of investment in us from the University which we really appreciate and that would all be for nothing if this continues for a few years and then fizzes out, so we need to make sure we keep the future of this team intact, which is something we’re definitely seeing within our newer members,” Robbie explained.

“The overall feeling of the team at the moment is overwhelmingly positive. People have started handing their designs over to production so now it’s just the excitement of being handed back the physical parts that they have designed on a computer to then put them together to build a real-life race car.” TJ added.

Robbie also added: “We’ve got to the point now where we don’t feel like just a society anymore, we’ve become much more than that - we’re a real team.”

This year’s Formula Student Competition will be a last chance for TJ and other final-year members to compete. TJ said: “It has been brilliant, and even though we can’t do this forever but the best thing that could happen for any of us is we all end up working in motorsport and we hear in ten years time that someone has been hired by a team because they were a member of GCU Racing. If this continues, no matter where we end up this will probably be one of the best things we’ve ever done, not just for the experience but for the fact it has the potential to affect so many people’s lives going forward.”

Formula Student will take place on 21 and 22 July 2024. You can keep up with GCU Racing via their Instagram and Facebook pages or by visiting their website.