The much-anticipated UBR15 Design Review was held on Friday 25^th November. The team invited this year’s Sponsors and also welcomed back many Alumni affiliated with the project in the past to view a detailed presentation outlining the planned designs to be incorporated on the car this year.

After a quick catch up with old team mates and Sponsors in the lab the team moved their guests into G31 to begin the presentation. Led by Design Leaders from each area of the car, the guests were given a breakdown of the processes used to decide upon the designs chosen for the car and summarised the targets that said designs would need to fulfil in order for the team to give a strong performance at competition.

The presentation included a review from the team’s Technical Director, Mark Sawczyn, who outlined UBR15’s main aims and also explained in depth the changes made to the car’s vehicle dynamics, using tyre data as the starting point for his design research. As well as presentations from the Powertrain, Drivetrain and Bodywork teams, the talk also included a review given by our electronics team; a new addition to UBRacing this year.

Following the presentation the guests were invited back to the lab for an opportunity to chat with the team about their designs and offer their feedback. In true UBR style the team then enjoyed a curry with the Alumni and friends.

After a few days hard preparation UBRacing were raring to go for the first testing session of the year with car 25. The team packed up and headed to Bruntingthorpe’s testing facilities for the cars first official run since competition. The day gave us an ideal opportunity to monitor suspected issues with the oil pressure in the engine and evaluate the throttle body design with a view to changing it this year.

Mark started off at a steady pace for the first few laps to allow the car to settle down before working it a little harder and seeing what the car could do. After a second run the team prepared the car for a mock endurance run. Mark took the first half with the car running well until the 14^th lap where the brakes locked unexpectedly landing him off the track. Once both driver and car were thoroughly checked and given the thumbs up Mark carried on for the final laps then came in to check over the car and let Danny take the second half of endurance.

Setting a strong pace from the off Danny managed the fastest lap of the day at 26.15s. Unfortunately, as a result of a reoccurrence of the brake issue Mark suffered from earlier Danny cut short his run after a series of impressive lap times. Unperturbed by the set back he set off to complete the endurance run in good time. After a complete endurance run, Andy, after dedicating 2 years to the project, was finally given the chance to drive the car and produced some excellent times for a first run in a Formula Student car.

Overall the team had a successful days testing, encountering only a few set backs during the session and logging plenty of data from the runs to take back to the lab for analysis. The day also gave the second years a fantastic opportunity to see the car running outside of competition and help with the testing preparations.