A team of young engineers from the Technical University Munich won the top prize at this year’s Formula Student competition (held 15-18 July) at Silverstone, while a team from ETH Zurich won the award for top ‘green’ car. The top-ranking British team came from the University of Hertfordshire.

FS 2010 saw the largest number of entrants in the event’s 13-year history, with more than 2,500 students involved. It was attended by former F1 driver David Coulthard and Bob Bell, managing director of the Renault F1 Team. The students’ cars were put through their paces in a series of events over the weekend, including acceleration, sprint, skid-pad and endurance. The idea behind FS is for each team to work as a phantom company, seeking to produce a commercially viable car, so they are judged on cost, design and presentation, as well as performance.

Chief judge Richard Folkson said of TU Munich’s efforts: “Congratulations to a team and car that fully deserved to win. They were consistently outstanding throughout a very hard-fought and close competition. The team were exceptionally professional and well presented.”

On the University of Hertfordshire taking the highest-ranking British spot, he said: “Hertfordshire, like Munich, were fully competitive throughout. With a third of entries from the UK, they staved off a lot of stiff competition from some of the best universities in the world. The commitment of the students was incredible.”