History

Founded in the late 2007, the team today comprises more than 40 members. University of Pisa competed for the first time in Formula SAE in 2008. E-Team, with a limited budget, started from the bottom and was able to race at the Italian Formula SAE event in Fiorano after 9 months of intense work. The E-Team, first among the rookies, completed the endurance race third over 11 Italian teams.

"In my knowledge it is the first time a rookie team finishes the endurance test"
Andrea Toso, head of Dallara R&D

In 2009, the team was composed by 43 members from 4 different Faculties: Engineering, Economics, Humanities and Political Sciences; the group is now organized in sectors interacting and working proficiently in order to make everything work in the best way possible, just like an industrial working environment, brilliantly accomplishing its objectives, as in August 2009 the Team participates to its first international competition: Formula Student Germany, held at Hockenheimring (Hockenheim, Germany). In that occasion the group faced the competition against 78 teams from all over the world, and gets the tenth position at the static “Cost Report” event.

In 2011, the partially renewed team took inspiration from the previous year's work to develop the ET4, a brand new car built as an overall improvement of ET3, featuring renewed ergonomics and a lightweight bodywork with maximized efficiency and cooling flow. During the season, the first presentation with a running car was made at the Engineering Faculty in order to recruit new designers, and the team participated in the two events it had been getting acquainted to, namely Formula Student Germany and Formula SAE Italy. The former event, interrupted by a hideous oil leak, gives anyway good results, with the best being the FSG Media Award for a 30 seconds video presenting the event to the world. The latter keeps up with the FSG results until an unexpected engine issue causes the engine to overheat and eventually catch fire on runoff lubrication oil, midway through the Endurance event.

The 2013 session had started with a hard decision: not getting any tangible result from Academia, and with the officiality of the project in jeopardy, the alternatives were either: keep hoping or close the Team. Fortunately, with the intervention of a second Faculty advisor the progress towards the recognition of the Team members participation in terms of credit and with an official funding from the Departments gets back in route. The decision to save the project has been made quite late in the year, so the only chance remained was to participate in the brand new Formula Student Czech Republic competition in Hradec Kralove. The new ET5-xl car, modified to be compliant with the new rule set, is prepared to unleash its true potential and extensively tested. The competition sees once again an exceptional third place in the Business Plan Presentation, but unfortunately another share of bad luck is around the corner and the car, after having behaved very well on the previous events, is forced to stop after a bad debonding failure of a suspension A-arm.

The 2015 session began with an increasing in its members. Later it was redesigned the organization dividing members in two areas: technical and management. The team assumed a company structure which soon brought its results. A new car, called Kerub, was designed in few months, but for several reasons, the team could not be able to finish its development. This is the reason why the E-Team participated only to the Formula SAE Italy competition Static Events (class 3). During this event held in Varano de' Melegari on September 2015 the team won the first place in Class 3: first place in Design Event, Business Plan and Cost Event. Three out of three.

Season 2017 began with a lot of job interviews at the Engineering Faculty at the University of Pisa. After an opening period of organisation the Team had the chance to participate at the Motor Show that took place in Bologna, Italy, with other Italian teams. 2016 ended with the confirmation of the attendance at the future FSAE Italy competition that will take place in Varano de' Melegari at the Riccardo Paletti Racetrack from the 19th to the 23rd of July 2017. After hard work and tests, the E-Team Racing Team had successfully joined the list of the 65 teams, globally, that will participate at the FSGermany 2017 that will take place in Hockenheim from the 8th to the 13th of August 2017.

2019 was successful year for the team and the new prototype, Kerublast. E-team took part in three competitions this time, FSAE Italy at Riccardo Paletti Racetrack, FS Germany at Hockenheim and FS Czech Replublic at Autodrom Most. In Germany, the team won the first place for the Business plan and Cost event, a fifth place in the acceleration test and finished fifteenth overall. In all three events Kerublast finished all the endurance test without disqualifications.

In 2021, for the first time, the team brought in two cars, the Galileo and the Kerubless, respectively combustion car with driver and driverless car. It was a difficult season given the grandeur of the challenge to create a driverless car from scratch, but with great efforts of the whole team was able to get the first place of Cost Report event in Germany (FSG2021) and first place of Cost Report event and Design Event in Italy (FSATA2021).