Sheffield Formula Racing will compete against nearly 100 universities from across the world when they get on the track at Silverstone Circuit in July.
The team have been successful in recent years, and this time, their team of more than 30 dedicated engineers have even bigger goals.
Team Principal, Henry Mansfield, said: “There’s a lot of passion in the team, sometimes we spend more time on the car than on our courses.”
The last two years Sheffield has produced two competitive cars, coming fifth overall in 2018 and 14th in 2019, despite scoring zero points in the main endurance event due to a failure on the car.
Henry continued to say: “We’re really pushing to secure a podium position overall, so we’d absolutely love to get into the top three, which would be a pretty huge accomplishment for us.
“We’re competing against some teams who are operating on a much bigger budget compared to what we run with.”
Sheffield started designing this year’s car in September, with the hopes that a final design will be ready by Christmas.
Once the design is settled, the car will be put together and revealed at a launch event during the third week of the Easter break.
Testing is done at local tracks to ensure the car is ready for competition at Silverstone.
The car is driven by the students on the team and the driver is usually decided by who can achieve the best lap times, however, for the benefit of the car, height and weight can be considered when the team decide who gets the honour of tearing up the track.
Every year, 10-12 first-year students join the Sheffield Formula Racing team but not without surviving a rigorous six-week application process.
Marketing Leader, Ashley Davison, said that the team wants people who will engage with the team and be motivated.
The 115 applicants who applied to the team this year must take part in group interviews, produce technical reports on the four-stroke engine and be able to work as a team before the new members are chosen in November.
