Hannah Eastlake
- Course
- Mechanical Engineering MEng
- Subject area
- Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering
I chose to study Mechanical Engineering as when applying for courses in secondary school, I knew that I would go into engineering, particularly with my choice of A-Levels in maths and physics. However, I hadn’t decided on a specific route with so many options from automotive to aeronautical and electrical etc.
My goal was always to end up working in Formula One, so with this, I decided to select the course with the most variety in the early year to allow me to refine at a later stage. I found with the course structure at Loughborough that this was ideal and started with the fundamentals from electronics to thermodynamics and materials.
When looking at universities, I knew I wanted to join the Formula Student team as it showed an opportunity to have direct practical experience. When touring universities, we had the chance to speak to the members at the time and hear how it had helped them in applying the lecture content. This appealed to me particularly as I had chosen a less automotive/motorsport applied degree.
I am the Team Leader for LFS25 (Loughborough Formula Student 2025), which involves managing the team’s operational needs and external relations. This involves overseeing the allocation of resources, monitoring progress against goals, and maintaining clear communication both within the team and with external stakeholders. My role centres around ensuring smooth running throughout the year to enhance team performance and education.
My highlight with the team has been taking the 2023 car to compete at FSCzech as the Head of Low Voltage. We had moved to an electrical car in 2020, my first year at Loughborough, and with the new challenges it presented when compared to an internal combustion car, we had struggled to return to international events.
This was my first international event and despite no dynamic running of the car at the event, we had a great time camping at the circuit as a team and managed to successfully pass Low Voltage Scrutineering for the first time.
We are incredibly well supported by the university, starting with our Faculty Advisor (FA), Scot Layton. We are financially supported by the University and are also lucky enough to have our own building on campus, the Ecclestone Student Engineering Centre, which holds our own fabrication and machining facilities with an electronic area.
On top of this, we have access to additional facilities across the university such as an autoclave, wind tunnel and battery emulator. With a number of workshops at Loughborough, we receive their support from training to technical knowledge and largely through manufacturing.
I was lucky enough to secure a placement at Mercedes AMG Formula One Team as an Electronics Engineer. I completed the 13-month placement between Part C and Part D and the success of my application can partially be attributed to my experience at Formula Student.
The highlight of my placement experience was the sheer variety of the role. I managed to experience the whole process from design to build and finally test within one of my projects due to the speed of Formula One.
I also was fortunate to learn from all areas of the business and experience a few race weekends in the Race Support Room. My placement has allowed me to apply the learnings from university to the highest level of motorsport and secure a graduate role back at Mercedes to begin my future career.