Queen's Formula Racing News

QFR Arrives at Silverstone

After many late nights and last minute modifications to the car, Queen's Formula Racing has arrived at Silverstone for Formula Student 2007. The car and an advanced team of three travelled over by ferry yesterday, while the rest of the team caught the plane from Belfast to London Luton this morning. The advance team spent the morning fettling the car before joining the queue for scrutineering, which they are still in. Everyone has arrived safely and has now signed on for the competition. The static events begin tomorrow (Friday) with the dynamic events running over Saturday and Sunday. Let the games begin!

Ready to Fire-Up the Engine

The move to Silverstone seems to have coincided with a increase in the severity of scrutineering. After waiting in line for a long time the car failed on a number of minor points. Nothing too significant, but enough to take several hours of remedial action. The car was re-presented for scrutineering at 4pm and passed after a short re-inspection.

The car is now moving around, this much larger venue, trying to tick off all the other pre-dynamic event tasks - weightbridge, tilt table, sound check, brake test.

The design review took place first thing this morning and involved in depth discussions of all the engine research that took place over the year. It all seemed to go okay, but no points posted yet.

The marketing preentation took place at 3pm today. Daire and Karen made an excellent job of the graphics and presentation, as usual. So the scoring will all be down to how well the content was received by the judges.

Cost event is next, at 5.30pm. Must finish up to go and watch it.

Busy Start to Day 2

Time caught up with the team on Friday and the car finished the day still needing to clear the noise, tilt table and brake test. However, the cost event seemed to go well - well done Jimmy.

First thing this morning was noise, which was cleared first time. However, the tilt table proved to be more difficult. With the car tilted at 60 degrees fuel was leaking from the cap, or more spicifically, the non return valve in the cap. It took about 90 minutes to rig up an alternative, which passed first time. However, time was no longer with us as the skid pan and acceleration closed at 12.30 and it was now 12.00.

The brake test was also cleared first time and the car was pushed straight to the skid pan, with the intention of getting a time on the board before quickly moving onto the acceleration event. That plan was delayed, when there was a failure with the timing equipment. So another run was quickly completed, before moving on to the acceleration run.

We joined the acceleration queue behind three other cars and a much larger queue quickly formed behind us as teams tried to get a(nother) time on the board before it closed. The event closed at 12.30 on-the-dot and the queue hadn't moved any further. We had missed the event completely!

The sprint track has now opened and the car is being set up for it. More news to follow ...

Steady Progress on Day 2

Results have now been posted for the skid pad and acceleration run. Queen's finished 33rd in the skid pan, but didn't pick up any points in the acceleration run after failing to post a time. They were is good company though as almost half the field failed to make it to the acceleration event, mainly because of problems getting through scrutineering.

After the disappointment of the acceleration run the team made a special effort to get all their runs completed in the sprint event. Robert Erwin and Ciaran Branney each completed two flying laps of the sprint course, with Ciaran posting the fastest time of 53.1 seconds. No results are available yet for the other competitors, but the QUB time was off the pace of the top cars.

The car has spent some time in the practice area trying to squeeze some much needed seconds out of the suspension set-up and will finish the day will a run on the Ricardo rolling road – to see how good the engine actually is!

Results are also yet to be posted for the static events. When they are more information will be posted here – probably sometime tomorrow.

Static Results Posted

Mixed feelings about the static events after the results were posted. The design event was headed by Graz as expected, although many previously good teams now found themselves in the mid-field. Unfortunately QUB were among them with a final position of 33rd overall. The cost and presentation events provided better news with 10th in the cost event and 12th in the presentation.

The running order for the endurance event has been posted and QUB will be 8th off in the first group this morning. The top qualifiers will be running this afternoon, when there is a strong possibility of rain. If rain did arrive for the top runners it would go some way to close the performance advantage the top teams currently enjoy.

Queen's Exit in a Cloud of Smoke

A difficult end to a difficult competition, when the QFR engine expired in a cloud of blue smoke. The weather was good and the car was performing significantly better than yesterday, after some late night set-up changes, but it all came to an end about 16 laps into the 24-lap autocross. A quick inspection back at the pits located a hole in the crankcase, which is doubtless the result of more significant problems. The team are now going to pack up, get something to eat and have a look at some of the top cars. Plans for next years are already well under way.

The Calm After the Storm

After some food, relaxation and packing the team settled down to watch the top seeded teams in the endurance event. Luckily, the rain stayed away for the frontrunners and there was some excellent driving and a high rate of finishers. RMIT from Australia was looking good for an overall win, but the final results have yet to be posted. When they are, they will be reported here.

Endurance Event Critical to Success

The endurance event was once again critical to success in Formula Student. With a high attrition rate virtually all the finishers claimed a top-20 spot in the overall classification. First overall went to RMIT from Australia, second to Delft from Holland and third to Stuttgart of Germany. QUB had a reasonable run in most events, but with no-score in the accelleration event and a non-finish in the endurance a mid-field position was inevitable - 34th overall. The full results can be found on the Formula Student website.