Motorsports Engineering

The first three years of your degree qualification will typically comprise 360 credits, and each 20 credit (a standard module) equates to 200 hours of study. This is made up of a mixture of lectures, seminars, tutorials, practical sessions and independent study, that latter is an important part of your degree.

The exact combination of study time will be detailed within your module descriptors, and will depend on your option choices.

This course gives you the design and manufacturing experience you need to progress to the highest levels in the motor sports and engineering industry.

The design and build of a Formula Student race car is a key part of the curriculum - you’ll work as part of a student-led group competing in an international competition at Silverstone, renowned as a testing ground for the next generation of world-class engineers.

You’ll be encouraged to join our Motorsports Club, where you will race Formula Ford race cars and work on an Eco-marathon car.

You’ll also be learning from staff who’ve had successful careers in motorsport, aerospace, automotive and rail industries.

Our MEng course deepens and embeds your investigative and design skills through additional group and individual projects.

This course offers an optional 48-week sandwich placement in industry, between your second and third year. If you’re interested, we’ll help you find and prepare for a placement. Placements are a great way to consolidate your first two years of learning, gain experience, and radically enhance your employability.

Assessments are by traditional examinations, formal reports, interviews, presentations and commentaries on portfolios. The racing, the motorsports club and our 'open door' policy makes the staff approachable for help in the assessment 'game'.

After completing three years of full-time study you’ll have the option to graduate with a BEng (Hons) degree (it will take four years to reach this stage if you choose to go on a 48-week industrial placement in-between Years 2 and 3). Or you can choose to undertake an additional year of advanced study and graduate with an MEng (Hons) degree instead (this normally takes four years to complete in all, or five years with an industrial placement).

Motorsport Club

Motorsport Club provides opportunities to participate in extra-curricular activities that will complement the learning you do as part of the course, and enables the development of additional skills and experience to enhance your employability. Initially the activities may be quite structured, such as the strip and build of a go-kart and the sessions relating to race car preparation and setting up the suspension geometry.

As your competence and confidence grows you may become a part of our successful Formula Ford team, helping to prepare and run the car at race events for our customer drivers. Typically this culminates in the Autumn with the Walter Heyes Trophy event at Silverstone, the world’s largest Formula Ford event. Or maybe you will support our Formula Student project and help prepare the vehicle for test events, or by getting involved in the build of the latest car.

We also have two racing simulators in the Motorsports Lab that you can use to put your knowledge of race car suspension set-up, and driving skills, to the test. These have data logging features to allow comparison of your driving to other students so you can analyse where and how improvements to lap times might be achieved.

Formula Student Vehicle Design Project

During the course you’ll develop and increasingly integrate the subject matter around the processes required for successful innovative and sensible technical design and manufacture.

In your final year this culminates in the Formula Student team project, a significant part of the course. The Formula Student competition is renowned as a testing ground for the next generation of world-class engineers, and you’ll design and manufacture, with other students, almost the entire car in-house.

In a recent example a carbon-fibre tub was developed using our CNC router, the engine was tuned on our engine dynamometers, the structural integrity of the sub-frame was assessed in our materials testing laboratory, and our waterjet cutter was working overtime to machine numerous components such as the rear wishbones.