One year after, again in Silverstone, a team of students from the Brno University of Technology was taking part in the competition called Formula student. This was the first participation for most of the team members at such an event. Actually it was the very first start for the brand new Dragon 2 car in its history. Successor of the Dragon dynasty slimmed down nearly 15 kg and underwent significant improvements. The major part of the improvements concerned to suspension components, radiator and exhaust system. Engine itself went through lots of testing on the engine dyno.

A clear goal was set before the competition - to finish all the disciplines and to gain as much experiences as possible about the car behavior and the competition itself. So was the tactics of the dynamic events. But let us take it step by step...

Static events were on the schedule on Thursday. "Business presentation" and "Cost presentation" turned out quite well. These two referred to the economic aspects of the project. The "Design presentation" followed soon after – this was the time when students had to answer technical questions from their watchful judges. After the first part of the contest the score was like this: 174.26 points ( 325 max.) and we placed within the first half of the ranking list.

Just before getting admission to the "Dynamic events", it was necessary to succeed in the scrutineering. There were no fatal problems during this process, so our car got all the necessary labels for dynamic events on Friday afternoon.

Saturday morning brought overcast skies and the rain was constantly soaking the Silverstone racing circuit. It was the first time Dragon 2 was equipped with wet tires. The initial event was the 75-meter acceleration. The time achieved – 5.685 s was not one of the best though, but both the Dragon 2 drivers were able to keep the car on the treacherous track and so the team was really satisfied.

Much better was the performance during Skidpad. Driver Honza Ševčík had marvelous the 16th best time. On top of that he really impressed the spectators and the promoters as well with his graceful drift.

The sky cleared up in the afternoon and the schedule reported: "Autocross". This means 800 m long track with slow technical passages and fast corners. The first driver was captain of our "Silverstone expedition" Michal Janoušek. With his safe ride he set the basic time. The second driver was once again Honza Ševčík. His excellent ride was unfortunately concluded with trifling error. „I almost spun just few meters before the finish line. Unfortunately the engine stalled and moreover I hit two cones, which means 4 sec of penalty…“, commented Honza his ride. Dragon was not a bit damaged though, so he was hundred percent ready for the top event of the whole weekend – the endurance race for 22 km.

The tactics expressed apparent intention, calmly and without any risk drive all the 23 laps and bring the car over the finish line. However, nothing was going so smoothly as before. There was a problem with gear shifting – the driver was not able to gear down. So he had to go the whole lap on the second, later the third gear without any chance to change the gears. Unfortunately, in the end of the seventh lap, the front left wheel hub broke, which meant the retirement from the race.

Despite the incomplete endurance, The TU Brno Racing team placed 44th of nearly hundred competitors.

Leader Michal Janoušek evaluates the British mission: "We gained a great deal of experience and just the confrontation with other teams showed, where the weaknesses were. In these days we have been working hard to fix all the tiny defects and imperfections. We have still two races ahead and we would like to get ahead. "

The next planned competition takes place in Hungary from 17th to 20th August, 2012.

See our photogallery from Silverstone here.