RMIT University wins FISITA Formula SAE World Cup at Silverstone

FISITA, the International Federation of Automotive Engineering Societies, has awarded the 2007 FISITA Formula SAE World Cup to RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. After four days of gruelling competition at the world-famous Silverstone motor racing circuit, culminating on the evening of Sunday 15 July, the student engineers from Melbourne beat 68 other Class 1 teams from universities around the world to claim the winner’s trophy and prize money of EUR 1,000. Second and third prizes went to Delft University of Technology, Holland and the University of Stuttgart, Germany, with Delft collecting EUR 500.

The FISITA Formula SAE World Cup brings together the winning teams from the national Formula SAE competitions to compete against each other. Currently there are four eligible national competitions: Formula SAE (USA), Formula Student (UK), Formula SAE Australasia and Formula SAE Japan. This year’s World Cup competition was staged in conjunction with Formula Student 2007, organised by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE).

FISITA provided a total of EUR 23,000 in travel grants to enable the top teams from the national competitions to attend the Silverstone event. RMIT University was one of the recipients, along with Graz University of Technology, Austria and the winner of last year’s inaugural FISITA Formula SAE World Cup, Sophia University from Japan.

As the overall winners of this year’s competition, the RMIT team now also qualify for sponsorship from FISITA of up to EUR 10,000 to take part in the next FISITA Formula SAE World Cup, to be held in May 2008 at Michigan International Speedway, USA as part of Formula SAE.

Formula SAE was first introduced by SAE International in the USA in 1981. Since then, the concept has been successfully adopted by a number of FISITA member societies. The competitions encourage teams of engineering students from universities all over the world to design, build and race small, formula-style cars. With restrictions on the car frame and engine specifications, the students’ knowledge and creativity are challenged and their skills in management, marketing, presentation and teamwork are developed.