Motorsport Engineering

GT-Arrowhead wrote:

That, my friend, is a sexy beast!

(I dont know) Its a beauty though, it looks like a mix between the Shelby AC Cobra and a Jaguar D type.

Does a bit, doesn't it. Same era as the D Type - it's a 1958 Sadler Mk3 that I snapped racing at Oulton Park a few years ago, powered by a Chevrolet V8, and it sounded fucking glorious. It wasn't hanging around either, he was fighting it through Lodge on opposite lock every lap (and you could hear it coming all the way from Druids) - you can see the body langauge in the picture. Beautiful car.

I know my cousin is doing a motorsport engineering degree at Brooks College in Oxford. That's all I know though!

GT-Arrowhead wrote:

... Isnt it quite rare for a uni to pay for your degree and take you on straight after? That sort of sounds too good to be true.

You've miss understood. The Company you do you the apprenticeship with will pay for you to get educated at uni and if you are good they will offer you a job at the end of it all.

But I agree with the others, you don't necessarily need to specialise in Motor sport. As long as you do a related engineering qualification that has similar key skills and knowledge you will be fine and also stand a better chance of getting job outside of motor sport in case that doesn't work out.

I work in the electronics industry and while the companies I've worked at specialise in a certain field. The specialist knowledge is not usually a requirement for a job, certainly not for graduate level jobs. A background in electronics design is all that's needed and you hone those skills and pick up a few more in your specialist subject as you go along.

Speaking to some of my friends who are civil engineers seems to be their industry is the same. So I imagine most engineering jobs will be like this, including the automotive and motor sport industry.

redddraggon wrote:

Kowalski675 wrote:

paul.skibum wrote:

Do something you love at Uni - focus on careers out of uni is very much a modern trend, in the 80's/90's nobody did career oriented degrees (or very few)

That was when degrees meant something...

Degrees in the mainstream traditional academic subjects, e.g.(and I can only talk about Eng/the sciences) Mech Eng, Chem Eng, Elec Eng, Materials, Physics, Chemistry etc, at a Big name uni (Red brick/Russell group/Oxbridge/1994 unis) all still mean something.

My point exactly - the proliferation of bullshit non-degrees means that these days it's only worth doing a proper degree, at a decent uni (one that didn't used to be a swimming pool or whatever until somebody renamed it...). The days of doing a degree in any subject, just to get a graduate job are gone - ask anyone with an arts degree...

If you get into the Imperial college, you are set. You will almsot always be employable. Anyway you can make up those 50 points

Also many unis will interview you and base your entry on more than just UCAS points. If you show you have a real interest in the subject and already have some experience they may over look your lack of points.

I realise I'm a little late to the party here but I'll chuck in my opinion for what it's worth if anyone is still reading this!

As someone who studied motorsport engineering at uni and now works in F1 I like to think I might be of at least a little use!

Don't get too hung up on the whole motorsport title of the course. The main thing you want to ensure is that it's an all encompassing good engineering degree. I'm lucky in that this is exactly what mine was. This was more by luck than me selecting it based on this though. You want to make sure you have a good understanding in a wide range of fields such as solid body mechanics, thermodynamics, control systems etc.

It'll be easy enough to really specialise in something at a later date if that's what you want to do. You could do an aerodynamics specific masters or even a phd if that's what you fancy doing.

The other thing to make sure of is that it's a good reputable engineering uni. One thing me and my mates who also work in other areas of F1 have noticed is that there are several unis which you get an abundance of people from such as brunel, loughborough and cambridge. That's not to say that any other uni isn't work going to of course.

As for getting a job in F1, don't expect to get it straight after uni. Some do, some don't. I didn't. Get a good engineering job and get some experience. You can apply for other things whilst you're there. A design engineer job is always a good bet instead of a project management role. If you're working in F1 you'll be designing things more than likely. Even when you're senior.

And then just echoing what others have already said. Don't expect it to be a 9-5 job and put the effort in, be positive about it and work extremely hard. If you're hard working and good at what you do you'll always be employable.

I hope that was of some help!

dont worry about drawing, the only people who do that are the stylists. as an engineer the styling surface is Holy. you can NOT change it. but what happens under that surface yep you might be involved in that. but it would just be "making" what someone else has "designed" Like currently I am working on developing the upper structure of two car brands on the same platform. where the brands have totally different ways of transferring crash forces. So we come up with a solution and pass it over to others to "crash" test and we then modify etc... all of this is done in the PC. paper might be used to help understanding between two people as they might see the answer differently.

strange this in a bike forum we have F1 people, race car people, car people and the odd person who has their head in the air, yes the aero engineers.

when you get your place at uni start thinking about the third year when you will need to do your placement as that can be very useful.

GT-Arrowhead wrote:

Why wouldnt an engineer be able to change the styling surface? Im assuming you mean the body shape/body work. Wouldnt an aerodynamicist be able to change certain aspects of the body to acheive a certain goal? Say for an example (off the top of my head) an aerodynamicist working on a touring car wanted the car to have greater downforce, wouldnt they do things like change the front bumper to be able to have a front splitter, or "widen" the car to make the car produce more downforce? This would be changing the style surface of the car wouldnt it?

Forgeting F1 for a second - a stylist has designed a car body shape. Everyone else works around it (including aerodynamics). If I need to get the bonnet shape changed because I can't actually make it that shape, or the packaging for the engine doesn't work - that styling won't change. I can't do anything that will interfere with this bellend's vision of 'The Car'. I have to change the way the car is engineered and constructed instead.

Example - the Lotus Elise only ended up with a lip on the boot after they proved to the 'designer' that the car was aerodynamically unstable without it. Literally they had to crash one on the track to get the point across. He wouldn't bastardize his Vision. The car crashed - he added a lip-spoiler pronto.

Re aerodynamics - I'll not fanny about with aero when I could be working the suspension kinematics to generate more mechanical grip. Aero is always limited - mechanically generated grip is ungoverned.

See aero, like styling, is only one small aspect of the overall vehicle package. There's a lot more mechanical engineering that goes on under the skin (aero is irrelevant to crash performance, for example). In fact there's a lot of manufacturing engineering that goes on with the skin too (A-surfaces were the bane of my life!). Aero is arguably the last, and least, most important aspect of the vehicle, especially in race-cars - the underpinnings need to be right first - otherwise you're just polishing a Marussia ('my dog has a stepped nose'. 'How does it smell?' 'Like a Caterham')

Clank wrote:

(A-surfaces were the bane of my life!)

yep cant install the engine at the moment. engine lift intersects the fenders. cant open the bonnet more than 20 degrees at the moment the hinge intersects the fenders.

not to mention front impact.