FOR a group of young students, hands on experience doesn't come any better than this:

building their own formula-style racing car from scratch and putting it through its paces on some of the world's best tracks.

Engineering students from the University of Strathclyde have been taking part in the Formula Student challenge for the past 14 years, competing against teams from the UK, Germany and the US.

For the first time this year they were the best team in the UK, and achieved 15th place overall, out of 75 teams.

"We achieved a fantastic result," says James Hall, 22, from Glasgow, who has been part of the team for the past five years and has just graduated.

"This is the team's best result in its recent history, and the first time we have finished an event as the leading team from the UK."

The hours are long for the students, who work on the project that isn't part of their curriculum - but the rewards are immense.

Previous team members have gone on to find work in the world of Formula 1 and Rebecca Wilson, who graduated this year with a masters, is now heading south to work in motorsports.

"It's exciting, it's a dream job," says the 23-year-old from Stenhousemuir.

"I'll be working on a graduate programme within the racing team, so it will be Formula 1.

"As a kid I always watched Formula 1 on TV and was fascinated by it. It is one of the reasons I became an engineer.

"And the University of Strathclyde Motorsports Formula Student team is one of the main reasons why I chose to study at Strathclyde.

"It has such a good reputation and our results show we are the best team in Scotland. It is a fantastic team to be involved in.

"It definitely helped my studying, as it has a lot of practical engineering: you're designing something not just for part of an assignment but that will be built and raced."

As well as the the chance to build and race a car at Silverstone and Hockenheimring, one of the most important things Rebecca says she learned was teamwork.

"There are so many systems on a racing car, you can't do everything at the one time, you have a team of people and everyone contributes.

"Understanding how to communicate in a professional capacity, especially when it can be stressful, has been one of the key things I have taken from it in a non-engineering sense."

The group of about 40 students at the university work on the design - creating a brand new car each year apart from the engine, the wheels and a few electrical components.

It has been an evolutionary design until two years ago when, due to competition changes and the experience of the team, they decided to downsize the engine and move to smaller wheels.

"Through design analysis it was seen that this would be quicker," explains James.

"That was a huge change and it saw a significant gain in on-track performance.

"The project is extracurricular. The way we try and integrate it to our studies is for people to do fourth year theses on it or fifth year masters projects.

"Myself and three other students did a masters project on adding wings to the car and that's effectively what gave us the benefits this year and led us to be the top UK team at Germany."

This year the car was completed in mid-March and the students spent the following months testing it at Crail Raceway in Fife.

With an annual budget of just £15,000, raised from sponsors and the university, the students face competition from top German teams with up to £500,000 to spend - which makes their success all the sweeter.

"We have consistently been the top Scottish team, up against six other universities, but we have never been the top UK team before," says James, who is about to start work in the Rolls-Royce aero division.

Within the German competition this year there was a large European presence and a number of teams from America.

"There is an increasing presence in Asia, with Indian, Chinese and Japanese teams and for the first time this year there was a team from Thailand.

"We are competitive so we want to do better every year," he adds.

angela.mcmanus@eveningtimes.co.uk