Faster and more economical. This will be the fourth Dragon e4 electric racing car, which was presented today by students of the Brno University of Technology. The ceremonial unveiling, or rollout, took place for the first time for the general public, in the courtyard of Špilberk Castle. The young constructors from TU Brno Racing will take the formula to a total of three races of the Formula Student series in the summer and will try to defend their position in the world's top twenty, where they fought their way last season.

At first glance, the Dragon e4 is not much different from its predecessor, the Dragon e3. This year, the students focused on the development of parts that are more hidden inside, yet have a great influence on the driving of the single-seater. We have built in recuperation as well as torque vectoring, which is used to improve driving characteristics by controlling the torque moment. In layman's terms – when cornering, a different force is applied to each wheel. Based on the speed and steering wheel position, the torque vectoring algorithm calculates and then compensates for the difference between the wheels and identifies the ideal track," says Tomáš Velfl, head of the technical and mechanical section of the TU Brno Racing team.

Dragon e4 Weight: 170 kg Power output: 2 x 35 kW Battery capacity: 8 kWh Drive unit: 2 x Fischer electric motor – driven rear axle, two-wheel drive independently of each other Top speed: 120 km/h Acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h: 3.0 s Chassis: 10" composite wheels of our own design

What sounds like a small change, promises to deliver big results. "According to our calculations, cornering can be up to seven kilometres per hour faster, which makes a noticeable difference in races," adds Velfl. Another new feature is the aforementioned recuperation, which allows the electric racing car to reuse energy that would otherwise be wasted. "Regenerative energy is the generation of energy during motor braking, where we return energy to the battery. It should have the greatest benefit in the Endurance discipline, i.e. endurance riding on a twenty-two-kilometre track. Until now, we had to reduce the power towards the end of the race to make the battery last. Thanks to recuperation, we will be able to drive at full power all the time and hopefully, we will achieve an even better time," explains this year's boss of the TU Brno Racing team, Marek Viktořík.

With innovations like this, the team believes it can defend and hopefully even improve its 15th place in the electric car category which they won last season. At the same time, students from BUT have only been involved in the development of electric racers for four years, while foreign competitors have a significant lead. "It is obvious that teams that have been doing this for ten years have their control algorithms at a much more advanced level," Viktořík points out.

Trends in the automotive world are also transferred to the Formula Student series and from there to the functioning of the whole student team. The transition to electric propulsion and the introduction of systems for autonomous driving mean that the team, traditionally made up mainly of students from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, now increasingly relies on students of computer science or electrical engineering. "We welcome anyone interested in

motorsport and willing to work. We also do our own marketing and other things related to the running of the team, so we also need people like that," adds Viktořík, who has been managing the fifty-five-member team throughout this year.

Among other things, students themselves secure funding for year-round operations. About a quarter of the eight-million-crown budget is covered by the school, the rest is covered by funds and material donations from sponsors. "We have a good budget by Czech standards and we are certainly competitive. However, for example, the best team in the ranking, which is from Germany, has an annual budget of about two million euros," says Viktořík, adding that he is certainly not opposed to cooperation with new sponsors.

Dragon has three circuits ahead of him

This year, thanks to cooperation with the Brno City Museum, the students brought the ceremonial unveiling of the Dragon e4 to Špilberk Castle, where the public could come and see the rollout for the first time on Friday, April 26. This way, the team can have fun for one evening before fully immersing themselves in their work again. May and June are dedicated to testing, and summer to racing. They plan to complete three of them. "We are preparing for the July races in Austria. The race will take place at the Red Bull Ring, which is a very nice Formula 1 circuit. At the beginning of August, we race at Autodrom Most and then comes our highlight of the season: Formula Student Germany," says Viktořík.

Formula Student is a competition for young engineers from all over the world. The task of the teams is to design, manufacture and test a formula car at the Formula Student series races within a single year. The competition evaluates the engineering approach, consideration of the cost of production, business skills, reliability, handling, performance, and safety of the car. In addition, the design of the car and the team's business plan are also evaluated.

The team does not yet know who will be behind the wheel, although they have been working on selecting suitable candidates for several months. One of the experienced pilots is the aforementioned Tomáš Velfl, who was the driver in all races with Dragon e3 last year. "It's quite challenging, but you can train for it. The worst thing is the heat," he says with a smile.

Plans for the Dragon e5 are slowly being born, which will undergo several design changes, and the team is already thinking about its design. "We want to switch to four-wheel drive," concludes Velfl.

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 jubilee 10th Dragon X model and at the same time presented the first model of the Dragon e1 electric formula. TU Brno Racing is the largest student team at BUT, with 55 students participating in the development, production and operation of the team this year. In the 2022/2023 racing season, the Dragon e3 team took 15th place in the electric formula category in the world ranking of three hundred teams.

More about the team at tubrnoracing.cz.