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11th Aug Brunel Racing Placed 16th at Hockenheim
Brunel Racing has had a successful competition at Formula Student Germany, again exceeding performance targets to finish 16th out of 78 teams overall making us the 2nd-placed UK team at both events this year. The team arrived at the circuit on Tuesday afternoon following a long drive from our workshop in Uxbridge through the night and day. To ensure a speedy entrance into the competition site, some members joined the registration queue that evening, providing entertainment for our neighbouring teams through the night with the help of the sound system in our hire car. With everyone in high spirits and excited to see the start of the competition, we were officially registered on Wednesday morning and able to set up our pit garage and prepare our car for scrutineering. On Thursday, BR-X passed technical and safety inspection with only one small modification required to the brake caliper bolt locking mechanism, before going on to successfully complete the tilt, noise and brake tests first time. Friday saw the static events, beginning early in the morning with the Business Plan event - a refined version of our presentation from Silverstone - delivered once again by Nick John and Michael Allen. Later in the afternoon, BR-X was lifted in the car elevator to the upstairs area of the competition for Design and Cost Judging. The work of the team in the static events earned us an impressive 7th in the Business event, 34th in design and 44th in Cost. Having passed scrutineering, Friday was also the first time BR-X was able to run in Germany. A test on the Bosch chassis dyno showed the car to be producing an impressive 80bhp at the wheels. Later our drivers were able to complete some last-minute refinement to BR-X on the practice track, ensuring the optimum configurations for traction control and suspension setup were used. Saturday morning consisted of the Acceleration and Skid Pad events. Despite the great humidity and threat of rain, the Hockenheimring stayed dry ensuring a level playing field for all the competing teams. Drivers Andy Tomlin and George McDonald completed two runs each in the events, ultimately placing the team in a very competitive 5th place in each. On Saturday afternoon, Rob Still and Andrew Bonjour completed the Autocross event, setting two hot-lap times each on a highly complex circuit. Despite some very tough competition from the other teams, BR-X managed to post a fastest time of 57.1s to secure 14th place in this event. Having completed the dynamic events of Saturday, Sunday was devoted entirely to the gruelling Endurance event. Cars were subjected to a 22km race under the intense German sun on the same track as the Autocross event. The combination of the heat and the bumpy track saw many cars fail to complete the event, with a very large number of mechanical failures seen across the entire field. Rob Still and Andrew Bonjour were however able to complete the full distance in BR-X, despite some problems in the last laps with a loose rear wishbone clevis drastically reducing the pace of the car by up to ten seconds a lap. We were ultimately placed 19th in the Endurance event, and the whole team was incredibly happy to have successfully completed every event of the weekend, particularly with BR-X suffering from such a potentially serious problem towards the end. Finally we were placed 16th of the 78 competing teams at this incredibly tough competition, making us second-placed UK university once again. The whole team were pleased to celebrate the result at the infamous Formula Student Germany Mahle afterparty long into Monday morning, before embarking on the long drive back to England the next day. We would like to thank all our sponsors for making two brilliant results possible in the 2009 season, and everyone on the team for their commitment and extremely hard work through many months and many late nights to ensure BR-X was in top form for both competitions. As recent Brunel graduates, the management team are now moving on from Formula Student, passing the task of designing and building an even more competitive car on to select members of the BR-X design team for the coming academic year. Everyone who has been with the team throughout the season and helped complete the British and German events is incredibly pleased to have had the opportunity to work on the project, and very proud of the results we have achieved - we wish the 2009/10 Brunel Racing team the best of luck for the competitions of next summer!
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