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Mechanical Engineering and Motorsport

Oxford Brookes has a long standing reputation for delivering top-quality engineering and motorsport degrees. Turn your passion for road cars, race cars or design into career ambitions on our courses. Our links with industry-leading firms and Formula 1 give you access to outstanding work placements. Gain hands-on experience on the UK’s no.1 Formula Student team, Oxford Brookes Racing (OBR) and help design and build the team’s car for racing competitions.

Top 3 reasons to study with us

1

Our motorsport, automotive and mechanical engineering courses are fully accredited by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) on behalf of the Engineering Council. This includes an accredited placement year by the IMechE.

2

You’ll be using industry-standard facilities, including engine test cells and a four-post shaker rig for analysing rigid body and vehicle dynamics.

3

Students benefit from our strong links with F1 teams, including work placements and recruitment opportunities.

Courses

Book on an Open Day

How to apply

Schools and departments

Courses in a mechanical engineering and motorsport are taught in: 

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Oxford Brookes Racing

As an award-winning Formula Student team it is our mission to build a mulit-year legacy as a competitive, high quality team.

Formula Student is run by the Institute for Mechanical Engineers, and is an annual student engineering competition held in the UK. Student teams from around the world design, build, test and race their small-scale, formula style racing car. 

Oxford Brookes Racing (OBR) was founded in 1999 to compete in Formula Student. We have developed and grown into one of Europe’s elite Formula Student teams. We've collected seven UK Top Team awards along the way; more than any other university. 

It's our mission to build a multi-year legacy as a competitive, high quality team. As well as develop versatile graduates able to excel in a high performance team. We nurture and help develop high quality talent, regardless of what you’re studying or which year you’re in. 

After a long and successful history of combustion entries in the Formula Student competition, we made the shift to electric for the 2021 season.

Find out more about Oxford Brookes Racing

Facilities

The Auto lab is home to Jenson Button’s 2003 BAR Formula 1 car, J.J. Lehto's winning Formula 3 car, Kimi Raikkonen’s Formula Renault, an Indy car, an electric BMW Mini and a BMW 1 series.

  • A variety of engines
  • Four-post rig for chassis analysis
  • Dynamics Fluids
  • Mechanical testing and stress

Industrial placements

Students talking at work placement fair

Our industrial placement programme has been commended by professional bodies as a model of excellence. We have excellent industrial links and placement opportunities with local automotive and product manufacturing companies.

Find out more about industrial placements

Our research

FoT-01

Future of Transport
SVEC-08

Sustainable Vehicle Engineering Centre
JTRC-03

Joining Technology Research Centre

Student stories

Gabriel Elias

"My best moments were winning the 2014 World Championship and then starting the 2015 season in dominating fashion with a car that I designed parts for and worked on"

Read more about Gabriel

Karan Bopaiah

"The MSc Racing Engine Systems course is the only programme of its kind in the world and is developed with the needs and requirements of race engine manufacturers in mind"

Read more about Karan

Nabeela Rehman

"I was involved in a project called Formula Student, where we design and build a racing car"

Read more about Karan

Rohan Shankar

"I have been working in the motorsport management field since the 2011 Formula 1 Indian Grand Prix. My skills in this field have developed over the various events I have been a part of"

Read more about Karan