FEST22

The 2022 season started tensely – on 11 July we set off for Italy. On 10 July one of the endurance and qualifying drivers caught covid, FEST22 could only be driven half a lap at a time because the car kept restarting, and two important technical inspection documents were rejected by the judges. What a start to the season! In Estonia we never got the car sorted out, and we continued the repairs at night in a local Italian car park by the light of a headlamp. Our last-minute efforts paid off and FS Team Tallinn achieved several podium places and the overall win in Italy with both formula cars!

The driverless formula car team headed straight on to the competition in the Czech Republic. The weather conditions in the dynamic events were nothing to praise, but defying the rainy weather and making tactically good moves, we were the only team that managed to finish in qualifying and the endurance event. Thus another overall win was achieved! The FEST22 team did not go to the Czech Republic but headed to Austria, where before the start of the competition we were hosted by the team of Graz University of Technology. At the start of the competition, however, luck was not with us, because during the figure-eight, acceleration and qualifying the car stopped at random moments. In the figure-eight and acceleration we got mediocre results, but in qualifying we miraculously managed to drive the day's second-best time, and in the rain at that. Whatever we tried, the car kept acting up. On the morning of the endurance event, 1.5 hours before the start, the car died completely; a couple of circuit boards in the battery pack had burnt through. That gave us the thread, and soon we found that the insulation of one motor's wire was broken. The fault was fixed 30 minutes before the start, 20 minutes before that the battery pack was sorted, and with a scant 3 minutes before the start we were on the starting line. At the awards ceremony we waited eagerly for the trophies, but when the results of the endurance event and overall classification were announced, our name was not called. We went to ask the judges what was going on. It turned out that the data logger provided by the judges, which checks the car's energy consumption, had not worked. Under the rules this means automatic disqualification, and no discussion could be developed. In total 4th place, which is not so bad, but 2nd place was close and it kept nagging at us.

Then we headed to Hungary, where the FEST22 and driverless formula car teams came together again. Unlike in Austria, everything went smoothly there. The technical inspections went smoothly and we also achieved good results in the static events – with both formula cars we got decent points in the cost report and with FEST22 we reached the design finals. On top of that came podiums in the driving events, and in the overall classification FEST22's second place and the driverless car's third place were guaranteed.

After a pleasant taste of success we went to Germany for the season's last and most prestigious competition. Although the same data logger was in use there as in Austria, with the judges' hints we got it working. The static events went superbly, in the cost report we achieved 3rd place and in the design defence we reached the finals. Reaching the design finals in Germany is certainly one of the greatest achievements of this season; it shows that with its knowledge the team has reached the absolute top.