The student team TU Brno Racing introduced its Dragon e5 racing formula this year. The fifth electric single-seater should also be the last that the young designers created in the existing workshops. The school plans to build a unique Student Centre for them and other student associations at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.

Although from the outside only true motorsport enthusiasts would recognize the changes to this year's formula, students have worked really hard on the Dragon e5 this year. "We have switched to a completely new concept, for the first time in the history of the team we have a four-wheel drive car, which is the current trend in Formula Student competition. For us this meant, for example, a change in the location of the motors, which are now recessed directly into the wheel with the gearboxes. We have also been developing a new battery pack and other safety features for high-voltage cabling," says Jan Kozelek, a student of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Brno University of Technology and head of the TU Brno Racing team, listing this year's challenges.

The aforementioned battery pack is the heart of the whole formula. And it is a really powerful heart. "We use cells with a voltage rating around 3.8 volts that we put in series. This adds up to 600 volts, which is a very dangerous voltage for humans. That's why we have a lot of safety features that protect the cells from mechanical damage and the control units must be able to quickly disconnect the high voltage from the vehicle in the event of a problem to avoid risk for the driver," explains Martin Koleňák, head of the Electric Powertrain section, a student of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication of the Brno University of Technology.

It is the multidisciplinarity that is increasingly inherent to the team, especially since the switch to an electrically powered formula in 2021. "Our team consists of students of four key faculties in particular: the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, who are responsible for the mechanical parts of the car; electrical engineers who build systems that will bring the car to life; IT specialists programming codes ensuring good function of the car, and we also have our own marketing section for communication with sponsors, which consists mainly of students from the Faculty of Business and Management of the Brno University of Technology," says Kozelek, adding that the team currently has 65 members, most of them from BUT but also a few from Masaryk University.

Four-wheel drive is a big experiment for the team, and that's how they approach it. Therefore, this season the team competes without the ambition to be necessarily the best, they mainly want to verify that the new concept works. "After all, that's the whole idea of the Formula Student competition: we shouldn't just race but we should learn new things – in practice," Kozelek believes.

Dragon e5 All-carbon monocoque Fischer Elektromotoren motors, 4x35kW Planetary gearbox with a reduction ratio of 12.75:1 10'' full carbon discs Roll-heave suspension system Torque at wheels: 4x370 Nm Aero package downforce: 754 N at 60 km/h Acceleration 0-100 km/h: 3 s Top speed: 120 km/h Maximum traction system voltage: 600.3 V

The new Dragon e5 will be more manoeuvrable and more powerful thanks to the changes. "We can use control algorithms such as torque vectoring more effectively, which helps the driver in corners and compensates for oversteer and understeer. Another is more efficient recuperation, i.e. transferring braking energy back to the battery. And this year, for the first time, we are able to exceed the 80 kilowatt power ceiling set by the rules, so we will have to limit the output. Theoretically, we have built a car with an output of 140 kilowatts," adds Koleňák.

In total, the construction of this year's single-seater cost seven million crowns. The Dragon e5 is now waiting for about a month and a half of testing, tuning and also the selection of the most suitable pilots. "During the testing phase, we train them directly on the car and collect a lot of data about their driving, which helps us train and choose the best ones," says Kozelek. In July and August, the team will go to international races in Hungary, Croatia and the Czech racing circuit in Most.

New facilities for young talents

And there is yet another task for the team: the students will soon have to vacate their workshop. The entire building is awaiting reconstruction and transformation into the BUT Student Centre. "It will be an open workshop for student teams. There will be both office and teaching facilities for them, as well as a large workshop equipped with the necessary technology. Our teams attract a number of young talents, and with regard to their excellent results in international competitions, they certainly deserve new facilities," says Petr Tesař, Secretary of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. Most of the costs of the fifty-million modernization will be covered by a subsidy from the European Regional Development Fund, the rest will be paid by BUT from its budget.

"Operating in interim facilities will be one of the challenges for us next season. But we are looking forward to creating something truly unique, other teams, at least as far as I know, do not have a similar center. In addition, we were able to partially adapt the project to our needs," says Kozelek, adding that the Student Centre will not only serve the formula team, but also, for example, students from Chicken Wings, who build small planes and, like the formula, take them to international competitions (the last time they brought third place in the SAE Aero Design competition from the U.S.A. in March this year). "Each team will not have to have its own lathe, but we will have one well-equipped machining centre and so on. Overall, efficiency and cooperation between teams should increase, which will again be a nice calling card not only for the faculty, but for the entire university," concludes Kozelek.

The TU Brno Racing student team was established at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Brno University of Technology in 2010. In 2021, the students discontinued the production of single-seaters with an internal combustion engine when they produced the 10th anniversary Dragon X model and at the same time introduced the first model of the Dragon e1 electric formula. TU Brno Racing is the largest student team at BUT, with 65 students involved in the development, production and operation of the team this year. In the 2022/2023 racing season, the Dragon e3 team won 15th place in the electric formula category in the world ranking of three hundred teams. More about the team on tubrnoracing.cz.