14/01/09 January Update

With 90% of the design work completed for the new QFX car, manufacturing work has now commenced on bonding the epoxy tooling board for the chassis plug manufacture. Sections of this tooling board are currently being machined to the chassis profile on a 5-axis CNC machine in the university workshop. Upon completion of machining, these sections will be bonded together to form the complete chassis plug, and subsequently manufacture of the mould will commence.

04/11/09 QFR Team Karting @ EI Sports

On Wednesday 4th November the QFR team made the short journey to EI Sports in Bangor for a karting grand-prix. The event was naturally very competitive but also very enjoyable for everyone involved, with some very fast lap times. A big thank-you to EI Sports for their kind support.

1st Place - James Leckey

2nd Place - Chris Henry

3rd Place - Glenn Sloan

29/09/09 Eddie Irvine Visit

Queen's University has announced Eddie Irvine as Patron of its Queen's Formula Racing team. The new role will see the former Formula One star meet regularly with the team and join them during track testing of their cars.

Speaking of his new role, Eddie Irvine said: “Some of these students are going to end up in Formula One. Mark Gillen, one of the best people I've ever worked with during my time in Formula One was a Queen's graduate. So, it really is the people from here who will help Formula One to continue.

“The best teams are the ones with the best engineers. The technical people are actually in many respects more important than the drivers, because without a good car you simply won't win. Great engineering graduates are vital to Formula One and it's great to be working with the students at Queen's.”

Queen's Formula Racing team member Chris McKeown from Garvagh added: “We have had a very successful year so far, and the news that Eddie has agreed to be our Patron is the icing on the cake. The wealth of advice and knowledge he will be able to give Queen's Formula Racing will really serve to motivate the team, not to mention make us the envy of all our peers. Perhaps we can persuade Eddie to take up an engineering degree here at Queen's and then we will have our driver sorted for next year.”

Anyone interested in watching an interview with Eddie Irvine and the Queen's Formula Racing team can see it here: QTV Interview

19/08/09 National Instruments Visit

Representatives from National Instruments visited the QFR team on 19th August to present the team with their prize from the 2009 Formula Student Competition. Queen's Formula Racing were awarded the National Instruments prize for 'Best Use of Data Acquisition in the Development of the Car'. As well as a trophy, the prize package consisted of a CompactDAQ data acquisition system and four I/O modules specified by the team, as well as a Labview training package for two students. This equipment will be used extensively in the development of the 2010 car as part of third year projects on chassis stiffness, anti-roll bar optimisation and data acquisition.

21/07/09 Formula Student 2009

Congratulations QFR09 for an excellent team performance at the Formula Student Event. The Class 1 (200) car finished a fantastic overall 3rd in Class and both teams were also awarded the National Instruments Award for ‘Best use of Data Acquisition in the Development of the Car'. The cars made it through scrutineering with relative ease and completed the technical and safety tests with no problems. Again QFR performed strongly in all the static events and impressed the judges with our designs, presentation and cost report. The Saturday saw the judges again sit up and take notice as both the Class 1 and Class 1 (200) cars started to stand out from the crowd during the dynamic events. Both cars then qualified in the fastest group of cars for the endurance event on the Sunday. During our time slot however, torrential rain meant that standing water on the track caught out the Class 1 car which aquaplaned off and failed to restart. The Class 1 (200) car was on track shortly after and tip-toed around the in the treacherous conditions and successfully completed the event to finish 3rd in class. Although the Class 1 car was unfortunate not to finish, the overall feeling in the team was high as QFR are now back to our winning ways.

15/07/09 Competition Preparation

With both vans packed on Tuesday night, an advance party set off early this morning to catch the boat. This allowed the team time to register at the circuit and unpack the two cars and all the necessary tools before the inevitable queue for scrutineering which opens at 12:00 on Thursday. At the stage the rest of the team will have arrived at the event to help with any remaining setups.

The program of events will be as follows:

Thursday: Technical and Safety Scrutineering

Egress/Fuelling/Noise/Tilt/ Brake Testing

Class 1 (200) Design and Presentation Judging

Friday: Class 1 Design, Cost and Presentation Judging

Saturday: Acceleration, Skid Pan (Figure of 8) and Sprint

Sunday: Endurance Event