Introduce your team briefly.
We are Strohm und Söhne e.V. – the Formula Student team of TH Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm. Since the release of our first car NoRa1 in 2013, we are committed to sustainable motorsport and proudly attend FSN 2021 with NoRa7, the latest car in our era of electric vehicles. After starting from scratch last season, we managed to build both – a new car and a new team – and are ready to race Nürnberg to the top ranks again. Our team consists of about 40 passionate students – called “Strohmos” – from different departments and study fields that can’t wait to prove our hard work on track.
Tell us about your team’s history with Formula Student.
Our team was founded in 2011 and released the first car NoRa1 (NoRa stands for Noris Racing) in 2013. We are celebrating our ten-year anniversary in Formula Student in 2021, which is why this season is so special for us. During the last decade, we had many ups and downs but overall managed to firmly establish Formula Student Electric at our university. We took part in the events in Italy, Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria and Germany and even managed to reach some top ten end results over the years. This era is what we aim to continue with NoRa7 this year.
What does joining Formula Student Netherlands mean to you?
To us, joining FSN means keeping up the team. Unfortunately, Strohm und Söhne e.V. was facing rough times before the start of our 2021 Formula Student project. At the end of 2019, we had to terminate our work on what was supposed to be NoRa6 and found ourselves at a pretty low point. Our team was small and mostly inexperienced and we weren’t sure how to handle our next attempt with NoRa7. We had to put in a lot of work right on the basis of team structures, engineering know-how and communication. However, we managed to get our team back on track and are extremely pleased to finish off our hard work with the participation in FSN this season. It’s a big relief for us to be able to join the event.
What are your main goals for this year?
For the 2021 season, our main goal is to race for the best results possible at the Formula Student events. This doesn’t only hold for dynamic, but also for static events as every single member of our team gave their best to deliver good results all over – no matter what discipline they’re involved in. Additionally, we’d like to gain as much data and experience with our car and its technologies as possible, so that we can pass on a solid basis to future team generations.
What made you think of/choose FSN?
Never has Strohm und Söhne e.V. been to FSN in all of the team’s history. We are happy to get the chance to be part of new events in new countries and add another experience to our Formula Student story.
What makes you different from the other teams?
In Formula Student, the highs are very high, but the lows can be very low. As explained before, we experienced both and are proud to be where we are today.
What is your biggest achievement in Formula Student so far?
In 2018, the fifth car of our team history – NoRa5 – finished Formula Student Germany in eighth place, which has been the most important result of our team history so far. The same year, we gained place seven in Italy and won both eMobility Race Days in Schleiz. We hope to be able to continue this streak of strong results with NoRa7 this year.
How did COVID-19 affect your team and how did you deal with it?
As probably most of the teams, COVID-19 put all our members in the home office and made us transfer the whole project to digital work. As the pandemic first found us in the concept and design state with little work to do in the workshop, we were able to arrange the new situation quite quickly. We set up a digital tool for project management, time scheduling and team communication. All our team meetings and the joint CAD work was kept online, which felt strange in the beginning but worked out overall. As we started with vehicle assembly and workshop tasks, we set up hygiene concepts and arranged asynchronous working shifts so that we could build NoRa7 safely.
You can follow Strohm und Söhne e.V.on their social media platforms for more information and updates:
Instagram: strohmundsoehne Facebook: Strohm + Söhne e.V.
Twitter: strohmundsoehne
Youtube: Strohm und Söhne e.V. – Noris Motorsport
LinkedIn: Strohm und Söhne e.V.
Web: www.strohmundsoehne.de