!NEW! Opel extends engagement for Formula Student

• Four teams supported by Opel get an Ampera as team car for the racing season
• Team Fast Forest from Hochschule Deggendorf joins the Opel family

Engagement for the Formula Student international racing competition: The Opel board members Mike Ableson, Vice President Engineering, and Johan Willems, Vice President Communications, handed over four Opel Ampera to the teams supported by Opel

Opel extends its engagement for the Formula Student international racing competition. The Opel board members Mike Ableson, Vice President Engineering, and Johan Willems, Vice President Communications, handed over four Opel Ampera to the teams supported by Opel. Each car proudly carries the individual logo of the team and the university. Opel also announced that it welcomes Fast Forest team from Deggendorf University as new member of the Opel Formula Student family.

Mike Ableson explained the importance of the Opel engagement: “Support for Formula Student teams is an investment in our own future. The students experience similar engineering and manufacturing challenges like in real automotive business. It challenges the team members to go the extra step in their education by considering production and manufacture as well as the economic aspects of the automotive industry. It’s a complete engineering development lifecycle that has to be covered over just one racing season!”

The idea of the Formula Student competition is that the teams take on the assumption that they are a manufacturer developing a prototype to be evaluated for production. The racecar must show very good driving characteristics such as acceleration, braking and handling. It should be offered at a very reasonable cost and be reliable and durable. The German SAE association (Verein Deutscher Ingenieure, VDI) is patron of the Formula Student competition in Germany.

Ableson also talked about the kind of support Opel is offering to the teams: ”Opel supports each team according to the particular philosophy of the team. The support varies from manufacturing of parts and components, use of the test tracks at the Opel Test Center Rodgau-Dudenhofen and comprehensive engineering advice, to public and media events, with the teams as brilliant and congenial brand ambassadors.”

The Opel teams demonstrated real team spirit when the Fast Forest team from Deggendorf was hit by the catastrophic flood last year. Together with Opel they helped to enable the Deggendorf team participate in the central event in Hockenheim. Inspired by that Fast Forest achieved one of their best performances ever.

As a team-car the Opel Ampera not only fits best with the Formula Student e-racing intention, but also provides practical advantages for the teams regarding daily operations: most of the time the car will be driven in battery mode. In addition the range extender technology also allows longer distance drives to the Formula Student events in Europe like Silverstone and Hockenheim and further events in Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic and Italy. Support for Formula Student teams is a worldwide initiative of General Motors. It’s a long lasting tradition that US-Teams supported by General Motors like MRacing from the Michigan University (Ann Arbor) participating in the central German racing event in Hockenheim are hosted by the Opel teams. The Hockenheim event will take place from July 29 to August 3.

The teams supported by Opel are:

TU DART Racing (Darmstadt Technical University)              dart-racing.de
Scuderia Mensa (University Rhein-Main)                               scuderia-mensa.de
HAWKS Racing (Hamburg University)                                  hawksracing.de
Fast Forest (Deggendorf University)                                      fast-forest.de