Engineering students in pole position at Silverstone

Every vehicle has to be checked to ensure it stays within the rules

Students who want to design the grand prix cars of the future are being put through their paces at the Silverstone circuit.

The annual "Formula Student"event, organised by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, has teams from across the world designing and then racing their own vehicles at the Northamptonshire venue.

Many previous participants have gone on to work for top racing teams.

One competitor said: "You never know what the other teams are doing until you see their car."

Over the weekend, the competition at the "home of British Motorsport" will be just as fierce as it was for the Grand Prix a fortnight ago, but the stars of this show will be young people who dream of a career in motorsport.

Their cars have to do more than just complete a race: Saturday starts with a 75m (82 yard) acceleration trial, followed by a skid pad and a sprint.

Sunday sees a 22km (13.7 mile) endurance test where the driver is changed halfway through.

There will be an endurance race on Sunday during which the driver is changed half way through

Angel Dong leads the University of Staffordshire team, which came second last year with a car that is easy to spot because it has shark teeth at the front.

She said: "Every year when you come back it's a different kind of experience, it gets a little bit more stressful."

The team has done everything it can to improve its chances of first place, but "you never know what the other teams are doing until you actually get to Silverstone and you actually see their car".

The teams work hard to get a few extra seconds out of their cars

Daniel Perez from the University of Bath said his team had been working on their car all year and hoped to reap the reward of their efforts.

He added: "It has a single rear-mounted motor which is electric so we mount it with a chain drive and we have massive front and rear wings with our first fully-developed diffuser and floor system."

With 20 nationalities involved, including a team from Australia, it is a truly international event which is live streamed so it can be seen across the world.

Some of the people involved in running it were students themselves once, like Dan Jones, who is this year's chief judge.

He was in a student team 20 years ago and is now living the dream by designing racing engines for Mercedes.