Kings of the World

The Formula Student UPV Team has once again written a remarkable chapter in the history of university engineering by winning Formula Student Spain 2026, held at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. The victory is the crowning glory of an exceptional season in which the team from the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) has also won Formula Student Austria and Formula SAE Michigan, considered the world's most prestigious university motorsport competition in the internal combustion category.

With this latest success, the UPV Design Factory team also retains its lead in the Formula Student world rankings for internal combustion engines. This position reaffirms the UPV's international dominance in a discipline in which the world's best engineering schools compete.

"A simply extraordinary season"

The Rector of the UPV, José E. Capilla, congratulated the team on "a simply extraordinary season, the result of our students' talent, commitment and hard work".

"Winning one of these competitions is already an achievement within the reach of very few teams. Winning the world's three most prestigious competitions in a single season demonstrates that at the UPV, we not only educate excellent engineers, but also professionals capable of competing and leading at the highest international level, even with more limited resources than other teams. This success confirms that our hands-on learning model, boosted by the UPV Design Factory, is an international benchmark".

Capilla also emphasised that these results 'project the name of the UPV and the Valencian Community across the world' and highlight 'the extraordinary ability of our students to transform knowledge into innovation, solve complex problems and work as genuine engineering teams'.

The Formula Student UPV Team was founded in 2013 and comprises around 40 students from different UPV degree programmes, mainly Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Computer Science and Telecommunications. Throughout the academic year, they design, manufacture and fine-tune a single-seater car with which they compete in the main international Formula Student competitions.

A global benchmark

With this year's victories in Michigan, Austria and now Barcelona, the team has enjoyed its best season ever and cemented the UPV's position as one of the world's leading universities in university motor racing.

The project forms part of UPV Design Factory, the UPV's programme based on learning through real-world challenges, which brings together nearly 3,000 students organised into 64 innovation and competition teams.