Team Management

At the end of every race season, USM’s most experienced members graduate and move on, allowing the new senior members to step up to positions of greater responsibility.

This time round, we have graduates taking up roles at major engineering firms such as ExxonMobil, Alstom and Qinetiq, and we’d like to thank them for all the work they’ve put into USM and to wish them all the best in their post-university lives.

Our new Team Manager for 2010/11 is Andrew Wood, a 5th year Mechanical Engineering student. Andy is a hardened veteran of the team, narrowly

avoiding a leg amputation at Hockenheim this year after being attacked by a German midge. As Team Manager, he

is responsible for the running of the team, including organising meetings, coordinating team members, conducting all official competition-related business, liaising with the university and making big important decisions.

This year’s Technical Director is Gvidas “Jock” Kiseliovas, a 4th year studying for an MEng in

Mechanical Engineering with Automotive Engineering. Jock has been with the team for several

years, and spent last year as Head of Drivetrain. He has the job of ensuring USM

have a competitive car for the 2011 events, and holds direct responsibility for all technical aspects of the car. This will include overseeing the entire design process and a lot of late nights during the build phase.

Andy and Jock will be assisted by a management team of final-year students, and will have a strong

focus on ensuring knowledge is transferred throughout the team and younger members are able to gain as much experience as possible. USM is currently recruiting new members from across the university and assigning tasks as we begin the design of our car for the 2010/11 season, looking to improve on our successes at 2010’s Formula Student competitions.

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University of Strathclyde Motorsport Formula Student

USM 2010/11 Newsletter Issue 1

Competition Update

This year’s Formula Student UK competition, held at Silverstone the week after the British Grand Prix, was attended by over 100 teams from universities all over the world, and was a hugely successful four days for USM.

On the first day of the comp, USMX sailed through the safety and technical inspections, the noise limit compliance check, a 60°-tilt fluid leak check and the mandatory brake effectiveness test. This was the first time in USM’s history that all scrutineering checks were passed in a single day.

Friday was static day, and various team members attended the Costing, Design and Business Plan Presentation events, scoring 14th overall for Cost.

Acceleration, a timed 75m dash, and Skidpad, a tight figure-of-eight layout designed to test the handling of the car, kept USM busy on Saturday morning, followed by the Sprint event after a short break for ham and lettuce sandwiches.

Sprint features an autocross-style course laid out on part of the racetrack, and two drivers have two runs each to get round as fast as possible. A spectacular final

run saw USM take 10th position, qualifying highly for the Enduro.

Sunday’s Endurance event went smoothly, with USMX completing all 22 laps of the course and earning enough points to place us 19th overall at FSUK2010.

2010 also saw 11 members of USM (and the car) travel to the Hockenheimring for Formula Student Germany. Our position in the scrutineering queue meant we were unable to get through the tech and safety inspections until Friday, but despite various setbacks the team passed all tests and competed in all static and dynamic events.

Predictably, the only rain of the week occurred during USM’s Endurance run, but once again USMX completed the event, making it eight in a row for the team, a record many top teams would struggle to match.

With 19th at FSUK and 41st at FSG, we can be proud of another strong season, and look forward to building on this for 2011.

Sponsorship

USM is always eager to attract new sponsors, particularly at the start of a new season. Our thanks go to all our existing sponsors and partners who provide the resources we need to run a successful race team.