Monash Motorsport on track

Monash Motorsport’s 2012 Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (F-SAE) Championship winning race car was on display at this year’s Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix.

Monash Motorsport Supervisor Dr Scott Wordley said as a reward for winning the 2012 Australasian Competition the team - comprising 65 students mainly from the Engineering, Information Technology and Business and Economics faculties - was invited to do an on-track demonstration and have their championship race car on display at the recent Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix.

“We were able to demonstrate a brand new technical feature of the car, the Aerodynamic Drag Reduction System,” Dr Wordley said.

“The wings are now fitted with pneumatic actuators, which rotate the wing elements to a low drag configuration when the driver is accelerating in a straight line, just like a Formula 1 car.

”Our system caused quite a bit of interest in the F1 pits with many of the engineers coming out to take photos and talk to our team on our way to the track, and we were also lucky enough to get one of our wings signed by Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel.

Currently ranked second in the world out of 512 university teams, Dr Wordley, from Monash University's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, said the junior members really stepped up and delivered beyond his wildest expectations at the Australasian competition last year.

“The dedication of our junior members, who worked extra hard on the design and build of the new car, really paid off,” Dr Wordley said.

“With this experience under their belt, many have taken on section management and leadership roles for the new 2013 car, which is a clean sheet redesign with many exciting, new features.”

“We have just completed the design of the new car, which has a lot of changes including different sized tyres - 10 inch rather than 13 inch that we have used in the past.

“We will focus on building and developing the new car this year and training up our new team members, with a view to travelling back to Europe with this car in 2014.”

The team will be representing Monash at the upcoming National Manufacturing week expo and running a special symposium at Monash University from 2-4 April 2013.

F-SAE teams from all over Australia will be attending the 'Design to Win' three day symposium, with Monash Motorsport providing training on the different software packages used to design the cars.

For further information visit the Monash Motorsport Facebook page.