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The University of Western Australia's Motorsport team achieved another success by claiming 3rd position in the 2009 World Championship for Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers), which took place in Hockenheim, Germany, earlier this month.

SAE World Championship is the world's biggest engineering competition, formatted to allow students to design and compete on the international stage with a Formula 1-style car built from scratch.

The Formula SAE Championship offers engineering students all over the world the chance to design, manufacture and race an open-wheel race car. The team is run and managed by students, with two academic supervisors. Cars are built each year by a team of up to 60 students and UWA's winning cars have always been yellow. This year the students raced in their eighth car and are now building the ninth.

The competition includes various examinations: dynamic - skidpan, acceleration, autocross, endurance, fuel economy - and static - cost, design and presentation. The rules change every year, which makes it more challenging for the students.

This year there were 78 entrants from around the world. The two teams that finished above the UWA team were the University of Stuttgart (1st place) and the University of Hertfordshire (2nd place).

"We had a very strong endurance event and with many other teams suffering failures, we were thrilled with the result we achieved, particularly having travelled so far to compete in a completely new competition with many new rules and different procedures ," said Michael Talikowski, UWA Motorsport Project Manager.

UWA Motorsport was established in 2001 and has a proud history, achieving local and international recognition in design. UWA Motorsport has won two Australasian titles and also was crowned the 2008 Formula SAE World Champions in Detroit, Michigan.

UWA Vice-Chancellor Professor Alan Robson congratulated the UWA Motorsport team for achieving third position in a world-famous competition.

‘ This is another outstanding success for our engineering students and it proves our commitment to achieving international excellence ," Professor Robson said.

Winthrop Professor David Smith, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics, said: " The UWA Motorsport team has achieved great results over the last four years. Students involved in the project should be very proud of themselves, as they have demonstrated exceptional skills in teamwork, management, leadership, health and safety and marketing.  It is a great opportunity for them to prepare for future employment where they can apply those skills as engineers and managers ."

For further information about the Motorsport team, visit the Motorsport website .

Media references

Taki Dermedgoglou (UWA Motorsport Project Manager 2009)  (+61 4) 13 575 452
Magdalena Matuszczyk / [email protected] / 6488 4277