On Monday and Wednesday nights inside Cal Poly’s Aero Hangar, the sound of machinery rarely stops.
One group fine tunes the design’s aerodynamics, while another adjusts the suspension on a half-built frame nearby. Across the mechanical engineering shop, students take on specialized roles to design, build and test Cal Poly Racing’s Formula car so it can be ready just in time for competition.
But late nights spent designing is only part of the process for Cal Poly’s Racing team.
What the team builds year round is ultimately aimed at one thing: competing in the spring Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International competition in June.
“We all work together with one goal which is winning competitions,” Formula Team President Ria Mehta said.
The grind has already been well underway. In fact, it never really stops, according to Mehta, a mechanical engineering sophomore.
Just two weeks after competition ends, the team is already laying the groundwork for the following season.
“We take two weeks off, then we immediately jump right back into it,” Mehta said. “Those two weeks I don’t really know what to do with myself, honestly. It’s a little more free time than we’re used to, and I think everybody on the team feels the same way because we all love the team so much.”
Each year, the formula car undergoes upgrades to meet new regulations and improve performances. The design process begins with early concepts and drafts before moving into finalized builds.
Cal Poly Racing revealed its formula car, Natalie, last month offering a first glimpse of the team’s livery before hitting the testing phase.
The fully electric vehicle powered by an EMRAX 208 motor marks the second year the team has operated on an electric program and is now undergoing testing to evaluate whether the design meets performance expectations.
The livery, or custom design, features a new vinyl design layered over exposed carbon, built to keep sponsors visible without fighting the car’s aerodynamics.
The car also features a front wing, underwing and tray wing — a configuration that gives the car what is known as an “arrow” silhouette, shaped almost entirely by the aerodynamics packed into its open-wheel frame.
There are new designs each year
Under Formula SAE rules, teams are required to build a new chassis each season, meaning every car starts from the ground up, even if some components carry over from previous years.
This keeps the competition focused on engineering development and prevents teams from refining the same car over multiple seasons.
Yet this season, the changes run much deeper than looks.
New rules for 2026 SAE competitions place tighter scrutiny on all-wheel drive systems and require more detailed structural validation and testing.
“Obviously since it’s an electric vehicle and it’s built by students, it has to be safe,” Mehta said. “So a lot of the rules are safety related and making sure the drivers are protected.”
Though no rules explicitly state that the car needs to be test driven prior to competition, Cal Poly Racing prioritizes its testing phase for the best possible outcome come competition week.
Who gets behind the wheel matters just as much as how well the car is built..
The team allows interested drivers to test on a simulator that replicates the car’s vehicle parameters, helping them understand what it feels like to operate the vehicle. Although the sim doesn’t replicate the full physical forces experienced on track, it gives the team a baseline for evaluating each candidate.
“It’s not just pure data that we’re looking for,” Formula Team Lead John O’Donnell said. “It’s also their confidence and control behind the wheel. We want to make sure that the person driving feels comfortable, knows how to choose a racing line and has general racing knowledge.”
From there, the team selects four drivers, each assigned to two of the competition’s four events based on who they believe is best equipped to handle the car when it counts, according to O’Donnell, an aerospace engineering senior.
The competition
When competition arrives, everything the team has built gets measured across four events: acceleration, skidpad, autocross and endurance — each one targeting different aspects of what the car can do.
Acceleration tests straight-line speed over 75 meters, while the skidpad evaluates handling through a figure-eight course focused on lateral movement. Autocross then brings it all together, placing drivers on a cone course where one lap can determine how well the car translates power, speed and control to post the fastest lap.
The fourth and final test is endurance, held on the last day of competition.
Spanning 22 kilometers on an autocross-style course, the event pushes both the car and drivers to their limits. Midway through, teams must complete a pit stop, shut the vehicle fully off, swap drivers and restart before heading back onto the track.
In a perfect world, teams would complete every event without any issues. But in a sport where machinery and engineering are pushed to their limits, problems are almost inevitable.
“During our endurance, if a part breaks, the car’s done,” O’Donnell said. “You’re not allowed to do any repairs, so if anything faulty happens, if electrical stops working, mechanical stops working, your time is pretty much out of the window.”
Cal Poly’s Formula Team will head to Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich., to compete in the four-day Formula SAE Electric Competition in June.
To mitigate the risk of any malfunctions, the testing phase prior to the competition is crucial.
The Santa Maria Autocross track is where Cal Poly Racing’s Formula team tests out its car to iron out some of those electrical issues and mimic the demands of competition, ensuring the team extracts the maximum amount of performance out of its vehicle.
O’Donnell said the team mimics the different events the car will perform to assess its reliability and consistency.
With just over a month until competition, O’Donnell said testing has gone smoothly. The team gathers on Monday and Wednesday nights inside the Hangar to refine the build, working through both the electrical and mechanical systems to make sure everything is functioning as expected.
“From my experience here at Cal Poly, I’ve never seen our electric car finish an endurance test during our testing phase,” O’Donnell said. “And yesterday was the first time we did it with our new car. It brings us a lot of confidence, but I know that we still need to keep our heads down and push to make sure that we are ready with everything else, and still improve up until that time.”
Cal Poly’s Formula Team will head to Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich., to compete in the four-day Formula SAE Electric Competition in June.
This story originally appeared in the May printed edition of Mustang News. Check out more stories from the issue here.
