Engine Heartbreak – Formula Student 2011
Few days on from Formula Student 2011, Relentless Team Bath Racing is still recovering from a heartbreaking engine failure that crushed any and all hopes of the team’s best ever finish at Silverstone. Going into the Endurance event, RTBR was within striking distance of the coveted prize – the Class 1 Winner’s trophy that has eluded UK teams for the 14 years that the competition has been running.
Sunday started with RTBR11 only 12 points behind the overall leaders Team GFR (Oregon State University) and 11 behind Rennteam Stuttgart (University of Stuttgart). A decent finish in Endurance and with that – the Fuel Economy would have been enough to secure a podium finish – not forgetting that an outright win was still on the cards.
RTBR11 was 3rd fastest in Sprint – registering a time of 59.34s
The Endurance run order was decided on Saturday, with the slowest cars within 145% of the fastest Sprint time running first. RTBR recorded the 3rd fastest sprint time and we were due to run on the same bit of track as our main rivals – Team GFR who won the Sprint event. Endurance was plagued by short spells of showers throughout the morning causing anxiety and tension around the paddock.
On track before RTBR – Rennteam Stuttgart
The 12 fastest cars were due on track after the lunchbreak at 1.30pm. The first 6, which included Rennteam Stuttgart and UHRacing (University of Hertfordshire), was sent into a sunny dry track. Rennteam Stuttgart pounced on this and set the track ablaze with consistently good lap times – eventually lapping the fastest lap of the day of ~57 seconds – for a total Endurance time of 26m04s, 3 minutes faster than UHRacing’s time.
Upon the completion of the first 6 Endurance shootout, the clouds crept in and the heavens opened. The top 6 teams: Team GFR (Oregon State), TUFast (Munich), TUDelft (Delft), RTBR (Bath), TUGraz (Graz) and Chalmers University of Technology were resigned to running in the wet. This effectively killed of any hopes of RTBR winning the competition. However, be it dry or wet; the top 6 teams were not fazed by the rain and decided to still give it their all to put on a good show for the crowd that braved the rain to watch Formula Student.
Taking on the wet track
Fred (Fast Freddie) Martin-Dye set off in the RTBR11 on wet tyres and wrestled her around the track to the tune of 68 second laps – which was comfortably faster than any other car on track. This was until Team GFR appeared on track with cut slicks (intermediates). Even in the wet, Team GFR managed to achieve a 61 second lap time – one can only imagine what the lap times could’ve been had it not been for the rain.
Driver change and restart successful!
After pumping in decent laps around a wet track, RTBR11 was in to the pits for the Driver Change. This saw Jason Linden-Tahincioglu jump into the hot seat and bring RTBR11 home. The engine restart happened smoothly and Jason was on his way again. Drama ensued 3 laps into Jason’s run when wireless telemetry showed Engine Oil Temperatures soar past 140 deg C. Short-shifting and easing off the throttle did little to stop the climbing temperatures. RTBR11 limped around the track with steam billowing from the rear of the engine for a further 2 laps before Jason pulled her over to retire. RTBR11 only completed 16 of the 22 required laps – but the finish line has never seemed so close, yet so agonizingly out of reach.
Pictures say a thousand words
Elsewhere in the pits, Team GFR who came into the pits several laps after RTBR had trouble restarting the car. After a prolonged period of the driver attempting to restart the engine, Team GFR resorted to declaring a DNF due to a blown starter motor. News of both RTBR and Team GFR registering DNFs simultaneously on different sides of the track spread quickly. Two of the three leading teams have now broken down – handing the Formula Student 2011 Class 1 crown to Rennteam Stuttgart.
What went wrong?
When the points were added up, RTBR was placed 16th out of 80 teams; 4 points behind Team GFR in 15th – who also broke down in Endurance. Though this was RTBR’s worst finish in 6 years (Bath finished 18th in 2005), this has also been RTBR’s best attempt at winning Formula Student. RTBR came to Silverstone with big ambition to win Formula Student and came within a whisker of doing so.
Over the 4 days of competition, it was evident that RTBR has become one of the teams to beat in the paddock; alongside the big guns of Team GFR, Rennteam Stuttgart, TUFast and the likes. The team suffered its biggest heartbreak to date in failing to complete Endurance; however RTBR will have no time to drown their sorrows. Formula Student Germany is happening in a little over 2 weeks and RTBR will have to regroup fast before going out to Hockenheim.
Continue on following us here, on Facebook (facebook.com/TeamBathRacing) and on Twitter (twitter.com/TeamBathRacing) for all the latest news and updates. Events analysis of RTBR at California and Silverstone will also be posted alongside media features & interviews of RTBR members from BBC Radio.
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 21st, 2011 at 5:30 pm and is filed under News. .