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India’s first Formula Student Racing female driver wins third at the Formula Bharat competition

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Sanjana Dhulla, student of K. J. Somaiya College of Engineering, Mumbai

India’s first Formula Student Racing female driver, Sanjana Dhulla, from K. J. Somaiya College of Engineering, Mumbai, won the third place in acceleration at the Formula Bharat competition. She was the only female driver amongst 200+ drivers across 90 teams.

Team Orion of K J Somaiya College of Engineering at Formula Bharat competition

She is part of the Orion Team which consists of students from Mechanical, Electronics and Computer Science branches ranging from S.Y. to L.Y. of engineering. The team has five female members — Shreya Rajmane, Sanjana Dhulla, Ketki Sanghai, Kopal Gangrade and Nishi Bhemani handling various departments from suspension, electronics and composites departments.

Orion Racing India, the Formula Student team of K. J. Somaiya College of Engineering, stood first in the overall ranking at the recently concluded Formula Bharat 2018 held at the Kari Motor Speedway, Coimbatore.

The team won the event with its Combustion Vehicle Prototype and Electric Vehicle Design. It was the first time that the team developed an Electric Vehicle design, irrespective of their experience with Combustion Vehicles only since last ten years.

Formula Bharat is a student level engineering design competition where participants from various universities conceptualise, design, manufacture and test a Formula1 prototype which is judged by various industry professionals.

“The contribution of the girls to the success of the team is unmatchable. Such examples of smart brains and equal opportunities prove the mettle of women in the motorsport industry,” said Shubha Pandit, Principal, K. J. Somaiya College of Engineering.

“Developing the electrical vehicle design was a challenge as it was a new category featured by Formula Bharat 2018. I was thrilled to be given the opportunity to be considered as the driver for the competition; this just shows the faith put in by professors and teammates. I am glad that I made my college proud,” says Sanjana.

With a promising start to the year, the team is now working on developing their next combustion prototype (Bellatrix) to compete at Formula Student East to be held in Hungary from 18-22 July 2018.