Are you following your passion, or is your passion running over you?

Lessons from building a Formula race car.

The first time I felt it was when we built a Formula Student race car.

Formula Student is a competition between European universities that challenges students to build the best single-seater Formula style race car. A project in which a bunch of passionate engineers create a Formula Student car from scratch.

This exciting project goes beyond designing and building the car, and involves the whole process, from getting funding and resources, to driving the car on a Formula One circuit such us Silverstone or the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. This makes it a very challenging project and a great learning experience for students. Some even consider it a gate to becoming Formula 1 engineers.

For some other universities, building the car was part of their academic program, giving their students a great chance of learning from practice in a very competitive environment. But this was not our case. In our case, it was a completely voluntary project that had no relation with our studies. So, its success depended on the passion of a bunch of engineers and professors working together in their free time and for free.

It was 2012, and it was my second year as part of the Formula Student Bizkaia team. This season, we have set ourselves to build our first full electric car.

This was the 6th year since the team’s inception, and so far we had built several internal combustion Formula Student cars. So, our know how and team culture was biased in this direction. We knew that making a transition to electric was not going to be an easy, changing a team culture never is. So, after reflecting about it, we made a risky decision, to build both cars, the internal combustion engine car we were used to and a new electric car. This may ease the transition, but it came with the cost of more energy and resources in an already tight agenda & budget. So, the endeavor was even more difficult, one that would require to make the best use of our resources while working in a completely new concept.

I couldn’t imagine the amount of energy that this would require. Recently, a good friend of mine reminded me of an anecdote that illustrates it:

“… do you remember the moment in the garage where, well into the night, the few of us that still were hanging there were thinking about throwing in the towel? It seemed impossible to finish on time. Then, you told us that since you were a kid, you had clear that if you had committed to something, you will do it and that, while it was still in your hands, you were going to keep developing the car. This, ignited a debate about effort and commitment and all the team got back to work.”

Eventually, we finished the car and participated in the Formula Student Spain competition, held at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

For the new electric car, just getting to participate was a huge victory and one of our most important milestones. Not without some agonic last time adjustments, we were also able to pass the exhaustive technical inspection required to enter the competition. With these two milestones, we had fulfilled our main goal. But the party was about to begin. The car showed its robustness by finishing every dynamic event (skid pad, acceleration, autocross and endurance), something that, at the time, was considered a success even for our internal combustion car. The icing on the cake came when we realized that we finished in 4th position in the cost evaluation, an event in which the cars are evaluated according to the efficacy of the resource usage.

This was a remarkable feat, and an experience that would change me forever. This was the first time I experienced participating in an exciting project with a very competent and motivated team. And it is still a reference whenever I am considering participating in a project.

Formula Student showed me how far we can get with discipline, dedication, necessity and creativity. But at the same time, it also showed me its limits. After this year, I was exhausted and burnt out, so I left the team. I had many interests and, apart from working in the car, I had been the entire year making time to train sprinting, passing my exams and living a life. This meant that sometimes I worked in Formula Student until well past midnight and lived in a continuous state of activation. Something I didn’t want to repeat.

So, after finishing my degree, I found myself feeling partitioned. I was trying to find a job as interesting as this. I could find few. Many friends felt the same way, it was very difficult to find projects as exciting as Formula Student and with people so dedicated to it. Some of them accepted it, some others fell into resignation, thinking that their best years are those of formula student.

In my case, I reluctantly sent a couple of letters to Formula 1 companies. I did beause “how couldn’t I try'?” but deep down I knew that a job like this would require most of my energy, and thinking about this kind of life made me feel tired and lazy. Never got an answer, and that felt like a relief.

I had learned an important lesson, and now my body and emotions were telling me that relentlessly following my passions is not the life I wanted.

And you? Are you following your passion, or is your passion running over you?