Oxford Brookes Racing show engineering excellence at Formula Student UK
Oxford Brookes Racing competed against 133 international teams at the 2026 annual Formula Student competition at Silverstone.
For the first time in its history, OBR entered two cars, a new one in the Autonomous Vehicles category and the long-standing Electric Vehicle. in the Class One category.
The competition came after the OBR teams spent months building and fine-tuning their vehicles.
The OBR Autonomous team (pictured above) pushed to go 50% faster than in 2025, beating teams from around the world to win five trophies:
- Overall Winner
- Overall Dynamics Winner
- Autocross Winner
- Skidpad Winner
- Track Drive Winner
Despite an electrical fault during the endurance phase, the OBR Electric team was declared the overall winner in the Static Competition and won first place in the Design category. The brand new car was designed to be lighter and more efficient with major changes to the chassis, cooling system and battery to improve overall performance.
Thomas Cawdery, Team Lead for OBR Mechanical, said: “Whilst the mechanical failure was disappointing, we did prove the novelty and quality of our design with the trophies we brought home from Silverstone. We are now working hard to prepare the car and looking forward to the next competition in Germany.”
Professor Gordana Collier, Head of the School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics, said: “Our victories at Silverstone demonstrate the excellence of our engineering and computing programmes and the ingenuity and hard work of the students who join Oxford Brookes Racing. I must thank the academic and technical staff who work all year tirelessly to facilitate the work of both of our OBR teams. And, of course, huge congratulations to the OBR students on their successes.”
Dr Andrew Bradley, Faculty Adviser to the OBR Autonomous team and Head of the Autonomous Driving & Intelligent Transport group said: “I’m so incredibly proud of the students - they’ve worked so hard for the whole year on complex computing and engineering challenges. Winning this international competition is an enormous achievement, and becoming the first UK team in history to build and run an autonomous racing car in a dynamic event at Silverstone sets them up to push the boundaries next year. Congratulations to all the students and thanks to the staff and sponsors who supported the teams.”
OBR Electric team is now preparing to head to Hockenheim in Germany in August - an event regarded as one of the most competitive Formula Student competitions in the International Calendar.
Find out more about motorsport engineering courses on the Oxford Brookes University website.