RS supported teams triumph at Formula Student

RS made £50,000 worth of products available to teams globally to help them develop winning race vehicles, through RS Formula Student funding. Two of the UK teams awarded from the fund scooped top spots:

University of Birmingham (UBRacing) won third place overall in the championship, and came top in the business plan presentation, while University of Liverpool (University of Liverpool Motorsport) scooped concept class overall winner and the IPG Automotive lap time simulation concept class award 2026.

Formula Student UK was launched by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) in 1998 and has grown into Europe's most established educational motorsport engineering competition, attracting hundreds of students and industry partners each year.

University teams are challenged to design, build, test and compete with a single-seat race car while also demonstrating business, manufacturing and project-management skills. The competition is intended to bridge academic learning and real-world engineering practice.

RS launched its 2026 Formula Student funding earlier in the year, inviting fund applications from teams globally for £1000 worth of RS products. RS received 137 applications from 33 countries, and 50 teams were selected to each receive the £1,000 product fund. Almost half of these were from the UK and Ireland.

The RS Formula Student funding programme forms part of RS’s wider Engineers of Tomorrow initiative, which is dedicated to inspiring and supporting the next generation of engineers. Through funding, technical resources, industry expertise and hands-on learning opportunities, the programme helps students develop the practical skills and experience needed to succeed in engineering careers.

Jen Scarlett, head of social impact at RS, said: “Supporting students in this prestigious and established competition is closely aligned with our commitment to championing tomorrow’s engineers, by helping teams develop practical engineering skills and bring their designs to life. We’re delighted that UK teams awarded funding from the RS Engineers of Tomorrow programme have achieved this great success.”

Since launching the programme in 2021, RS has supported 54 different Formula Student teams across the UK and Ireland, providing 125 individual funding awards.

Alongside the £1000 product fund, teams can access RS's technical resources and engineering support network, gaining assistance with product selection, sourcing, compliance, troubleshooting, configuration guidance and prototype development support. Teams can also access technical data sheets, DesignSpark content, and product expertise to help identify the most suitable components and equipment for their vehicle development.

Teams were evaluated by industry experts and engineering professionals, with criteria including engineering design, cost and manufacturing and business plan presentation. In the dynamic events, elements like acceleration, skid pad, sprint, endurance and efficiency were judging criteria, and the AI teams were additionally judged on autonomous systems capability and real-world performance.  

Of the products chosen by teams that had won £1000 from the RS Formula Student funding, those competing in the ‘Autonomous’ race category opted for single board computers (SBCs), to support high-performance computational requirements like computer vision for object detection, and path planning/decision-making systems. Common platforms included the NVIDIA Jetson series and Raspberry Pi. Most teams continued to rely on microcontrollers, largely due to their capability to handle real-time and safety-critical function – key considerations in Formula Student vehicle design.

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