Engineering Excellence: Team Bizkaia’s Journey to Formula Student Victory With Simulation

Some kids dream of being a race car driver; others may dream of being a race car designer. Thanks to student competitions like the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) Formula Student event, those dreams can become reality earlier than ever. Organized by IMechE, Formula Student is a prominent educational engineering competition in Europe. It challenges university teams to design, build, and race small single-seat formula-style cars, judged not only on speed but on innovation, efficiency, manufacturability, and business viability. The goal is to provide engineering students with a real-world platform to apply theory, conduct experiments, and innovate in a competitive environment.

Competing teams are scored across design, cost, and performance categories, with the goal of simulating the complete life cycle of a motorsport engineering project — from concept to commercialization. For many students, it’s a step toward careers in automotive design, motorsport, and advanced engineering industries.

“This strategic shift was driven by the pursuit of greater technological potential, improved performance, and a more sustainable approach to motorsport,” says Ibone Mancisidor, technical manager of the team and an industrial engineering student specializing in mechanical engineering at UPV/EHU.

That decision shaped everything that followed. Over the next decade, the team refined its electric vehicle architecture, culminating in another major breakthrough in 2022 with the FSB2022, its first all-wheel-drive (AWD) design. The team’s engineers used extensive simulation to evaluate the impact of torque distribution, traction, and regenerative braking, all key parameters for achieving optimal vehicle dynamics.

By 2025, those years of innovation came together in FSB2025, a car that perfectly balanced performance, reliability, and design maturity.

A Year of Innovation

The development of Team Bizkaia's FSB2025 vehicle followed a structured, yearlong process aimed at delivering a high-performance car ready for competition.

The design phase itself was divided into three main stages: viability, pre-design, and detailed design. During these stages, each department — chassis, aerodynamics, suspension, electronics, and powertrain — collaborated to ensure that the individual subsystems were not only optimized but seamlessly integrated with one another as the team leveraged Ansys Mechanical structural finite element analysis (FEA) software and the Ansys Workbench simulation integration platform add-in, the Composite PrepPost (ACP) tool, enabling the team to virtually test its ideas and refine them based on precise data.

“We use Ansys Mechanical as our primary simulation tool,” explains Mancisidor. “It’s essential for validating any component we design and manufacture, allowing us to analyze its structural performance under realistic conditions before production.”

Once the design was finalized, the focus shifted to manufacturing and assembly. This phase required precise coordination across departments to align production timelines and guarantee that all components were properly fitted. Since the team handled much of the manufacturing process itself, including the composite monocoque — or main structural shell of the car — maintaining accuracy and consistency was critical.

Finally, the car entered the testing and validation phase. Track testing was crucial for collecting performance data, fine-tuning setups, and ensuring that the car met the competition's regulations. This rigorous testing helped identify any issues early, allowing for adjustments before the vehicle faced real-world challenges at Formula Student UK. Through this iterative, collaborative process, Team Bizkaia successfully turned its vision for the FSB2025 into a race-ready reality.

“Simulation allowed us to focus our resources where they mattered most,” says Mancisidor. “We could evaluate multiple design options quickly, find the optimal solution, and move forward with confidence.”

Achieving Success at Formula Student UK 2025

When the FSB2025 hit the Silverstone circuit in July 2025, it represented the culmination of a year’s worth of hard work, simulation, and collaboration.

The car’s balance of lightweight design, high stiffness, and reliable performance helped the team outperform top international competitors — earning it the overall championship title for the first time in team history.

The victory marked not only a technical triumph but a validation of the team’s simulation-driven workflow. Every lap and test at Silverstone confirmed what months of analysis in Ansys software had predicted.

Racing Toward Tomorrow

Now entering the 2025-26 season, the Formula Student Bizkaia team is already designing the FSB2026, building on everything that the team learned from its championship-winning car. As technical manager, Mancisidor is guiding the next generation of engineers toward even more advanced simulation techniques.

The team plans to refine its use of simulation tools to push the limits of efficiency and performance. “Our next step is to start exploring impact analysis for composite materials,” says Mancisidor. Dynamic impact simulations will enable the team to predict how energy is absorbed during collisions, helping FSB design a monocoque that not only performs under pressure but protects the driver in extreme scenarios, an essential factor in real-world motorsport.

The team is focused on mentoring new members to ensure continuity and foster a culture of innovation. By sharing the knowledge and expertise gained during the development of the FSB2025, team members aim to empower the next generation of engineers to take on even greater challenges.

“Being part of Formula Student Bizkaia has been a deeply rewarding experience. Ansys gave us the capability to simulate, test, and truly understand how our designs behave in the real world. It’s helped us grow not just as students but as future engineers,” says Mancisidor.

Their victory at Formula Student UK proves that when students are equipped with the right tools, mentorship, and mindset, they can compete and win at the highest level.

For the team, the FSB2025 was more than just a car. It was a vision brought to life through data, design, and determination — and a glimpse of the engineers shaping the future of mobility.

See how becoming an Ansys Student Team Partner can help your team design smarter and compete stronger.