Superior Engineering and “Triglav” Take 2nd Place at Formula Student Spain

The University of Ljubljana’s Superior Engineering student team, in which students from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering also play an important role, achieved one of the greatest successes in the team’s history at Formula Student Spain 2026. With their electric race car Triglav, they secured an excellent 2nd place overall and, for the first time, successfully completed the most demanding dynamic discipline, Endurance.

The competition took place from 1 to 7 August at the renowned Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with more than 60 university teams from Europe and other parts of the world on the entry list. Formula Student Spain is considered one of the major European events within the international Formula Student competition.

Triglav successfully completes the flagship Endurance event for the first time

This year’s appearance in Spain was particularly significant for the team even before the final results were announced. Triglav became the first race car developed by the team to successfully complete the entire Endurance event, one of the most demanding challenges in the competition.

Endurance is not only about speed, but above all about the reliability of the entire vehicle and all its subsystems. Successfully completing the event is therefore an important confirmation of months of development, testing and work dedicated to improving the reliability of the new generation of the electric race car.

The best news, however, came at the end of the competition, when Superior Engineering secured an outstanding 2nd place overall at Formula Student Spain. Just a few months ago, such a result was primarily an ambitious goal for the team; today, it represents an important milestone in its development.

Among Europe’s top teams

The scale of the achievement becomes even clearer when considering the level of competition traditionally attracted by the event in Spain. At Formula Student Spain 2025, the top positions in the electric category were taken by teams from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Universität Stuttgart and DHBW Stuttgart, all of which are well-established names on the European Formula Student scene.

This year’s list of participants also included numerous experienced European teams from Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Estonia, Hungary, Portugal, Italy, the Czech Republic, France and other countries. Against such strong international competition, the Ljubljana team’s finish just one step below the top is all the more significant.

The success also demonstrates that a student team from the University of Ljubljana can compete for the highest positions internationally through its own expertise, dedication and carefully planned engineering development.

From the presentation at Ljubljana Castle to the podium in Spain

In June, the team presented Triglav, its new generation of electric race car, at Ljubljana Castle. Its development focused primarily on reducing weight, increasing reliability and improving driving dynamics. Compared with its predecessor, Triglav is approximately 30 kilograms lighter, while significant upgrades were also made to the battery system, chassis, aerodynamics and suspension.

At the time, the most important part of the journey was still ahead of the team: testing, troubleshooting and preparing the vehicle for demanding technical inspections and dynamic events. Just a few weeks later, Triglav demonstrated in Spain that the team’s development decisions had translated successfully into performance on the track.

Superior Engineering is one of the largest interdisciplinary student projects at the University of Ljubljana, involving more than 70 students. Students from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering UL make up an important part of the team, contributing primarily to the development of the electric powertrain, battery system, measurement systems, control systems, software and data analysis.

The result of thousands of hours of work, perseverance and expertise

Second place overall is not merely the result of a few days of competition in Spain. Behind it are months of planning, development, manufacturing and testing, as well as countless hours spent in the workshop. The achievement is the result of several months of work by 70 team members, who together invested approximately 50,000 hours in developing this year’s race car. Thirty members of the team travelled to Spain.

Superior Engineering is an interdisciplinary student project bringing together students from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Computer and Information Science, and School of Economics and Business at the University of Ljubljana.

Formula Student gives students an opportunity to apply the knowledge acquired during their studies to an exceptionally complex engineering project in which electrical, mechanical and software systems must function reliably as an integrated whole. In addition to technical expertise, the project requires organisation, leadership, interdisciplinary collaboration and the ability to solve problems quickly.

Second place at Formula Student Spain 2026 and the team’s first successful completion of Endurance therefore represent an exceptional milestone for Superior Engineering and significant recognition of the knowledge, perseverance and dedication of University of Ljubljana students.

The Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Ljubljana sincerely congratulates the Superior Engineering team on this outstanding achievement and wishes them every success in the remainder of the competition season.