History

A challenging but successful time for Cardiff Racing at Formula Student 2006. Cardiff Racing arrived at Bruntingthorpe on the first day of Formula Student. The equipment and car was unpacked and the pit area set up.

Unfortunately the team were not early enough to be scrutineered that day so that happened first thing on the second day. The team had minor issues to fix and later that day sailed through the scrutineering, noise and tilt test.

Following this CR03 underwent a brake test. On the first attempt, the front right brake disc failed very spectacularly, damaging the upright.

The team immediately rallied round and two cars drove back to Cardiff and worked all night on modifying the parts. It was the next morning before they returned to Bruntingthorpe and the improved parts were fitted in minutes. Again the car got through scrutineering but again had a problem with the brakes. After redrilling and tapping the rear brake bleed nipple the car passed the brake test.

Unfortunately, by the time all the braking issues were fixed, the team had missed the acceleration and skid pan events. Not letting this get the team down, they moved straight onto the sprint run and were placed in the top half of the field.

Meanwhile, the cost, marketing presentation and design events were underway. The team scored very highly on each of them and the judges were very complimentary in each.

The next day Cardiff Racing faced the biggest challenge for the car - endurance. We were 9th to go. Phil and Llyr drove the car fantastically and demonstrated that CR03 was the brilliant car the team thought it was. The car completed the event without any problems.

Despite the initial braking problems the team was ranked 19th overall, which is towards the top of the field and also won their first ever prizes - The National Instruments Prize for the best use of LabView and The FISTA Award for best endeavour.

Cardiff Racing are delighted at receiving the two awards and believe that 19th place was good after all the challenges they faced in such a short period of time. The problems that were overcome show what can be done as a team when things do not go as planned. Cardiff Racing is now back in Cardiff, having a well earned rest before getting on with preparing the car for Germany.

The team would like to thank all the sponsors for their support, especially those who made it to the launch and the event. Cardiff Racing are also very appreciative to the other teams at the event who lend us tools which enabled us to repair the car much faster.