At the end of July, the automotive industry turned its attention to Zalaegerszeg for a week, where the Formula Student East international student design competition was held in combustion engine, electric car and autonomous driving categories. For the second time, the city hosted Formula Student East, where more than 2,500 talented students from all over the world competed.

Formula Student East took place from July 28 to August 2 at the ZalaZONE Proving Ground, organized by the Association of Automotive Engineers and supported by HUMDA-Hungary Mobility Development Agency Zrt

Teams from the USA and Norway also came to the event, but most teams registered for the competition from Germany. Hungary was represented by the self-driving team of the BME Formula Racing Team and two combustion engine teams, the Arrabona Racing Team from the University of Győr and the OUR Team from the University Óbuda.

On the first two days, the engineering students presented their theoretical expertise to more than 100 industry experts.

Then came the Battle of the Machines, where the teams had to put theory into practice using ZalaZONE’s dynamic platform in five competition categories, including straight-line acceleration, cornering speed testing and a distance of 22 kilometres. The overall winner of the dynamic numbers was the Arrabona Racing Team from Széchenyi István University in Győr, who set an amazing time, ETH Zurich was first in the electric category and Chalmers Formula Student from Gothenburg was first in the self-driving category.

At the Formula Student East press day on Friday, Ádám Hideg, a 16-year-old professional driver from Kaposvár who competes in the Spanish Formula 4 championship, also impressed the audience with a spectacular on-track demonstration with Radical Motorsport Hungary’s racing car.

Source and photos: Zalai Hírlap