MANILA, Philippines - Every year since 2010, Shell holds its Shell Ecomarathon Asia event, where the brightest young engineering students from all over Asia & Oceania are challenged to design, build and drive vehicles that can run the farthest distance on the least amount of energy. The first few years of the SEMA was held in Sepang, Malaysia; and you may remember that in the last 3 years, it was hosted by Pilipinas Shell and held at a unique city track in Luneta Park. This 2017 is the first time the SEMA is hosted by Singapore, now as part of a larger event called “Make the Future Singapore – featuring the Shell Ecomarathon Asia”.

The Shell MTFS also marked the inaugural run of the Drivers’ World Championship Asia – a spin-off event of the SEMA where the student teams are challenged not just to excel above the others in terms of energy efficiency, but also in speed! The way it works is, the top finishers in the different energy sub-groups of the Urban Vehicle category (take note: Prototype category is not included for now), are tasked to complete in an individual, time-trial event. In this time trial, each team is asked to drive its vehicle 2 full laps around the track. The first lap will be for practice; and will lead into a flying start of their 2nd lap, which will be their timed, qualification run.

Each team of varying energy sources is given a fixed amount of energy-allowance to complete their qualifying lap, to even the playing field. The fastest 8 teams from this qualifying round will then earn a spot to compete in the DWC (Asia) Regional Final! The car energy groups that participate in this head-to-head competition are: Internal Combustion Engines (which include gasoline, diesel, ethanol, GtL – gas to liquid – fuel made from natural gas, and CNG – compressed natural gas); Hydrogen Fuel Cell; and Battery-Electric Power. And teams that fail to complete their qualifying lap within their allocated energy-allowance are immediately disqualified.

Team DLSU’s gasoline-driven ‘Eco Car – I.C.E.’ made an awesome performance during the Qualifying Run, and landed itself an advantageous pole position for the Regional Final, held that same afternoon. A strong 2nd on the starting grid was Nanyang Technological University Singapore’s 3D-Printed Car, running on battery-electric power.

The Qualifying and Regional Final race proper were held on a 1.19-km track specially-built for the Make the Future Singapore 5-day event held at the spacious Changi Exhibition Centre. And during the actual races, screens around the track displayed the lap times of the cars, their respective remaining energy percentage, and their instantaneous rankings. These all added to the thrill and excitement of the audience, who were rooting for their favorite student teams. And I have to admit that the incorporation of the Drivers’ World Championship into the whole Shell Ecomarathon series does add an element of real-time buzz and emotion to the otherwise, more laid-back runs of the pure, fuel-efficiency competition.

Mikko Flores – a 3rd-year DLSU Mechanical Engineering student – who was the designated driver of Team DLSU’s Eco Car, shared that he experienced a jittery moment of terror during the flag-off of the DWC Regional Final, as he mistakenly let go of a switch at the starting line – bogging down his car and immediately costing him his lead at the beginning of the race.

Team NTU Singapore’s car on the other hand, made an awesome race start and immediately passed Team DLSU – who stood motionless at the start line for a good few seconds – and proceeded to lead the pack for about half of the race.

Despite a delayed start, Flores chose not to be fazed, and simply pushed on – putting greater confidence into the performance of their vehicle. “I noticed that our team had a great average speed rating during the Qualifying round... so I just decided to drive consistently with the way I have, and bank on our car’s good performance to catch up,” explained Flores during an interview with The Star after the race.

True enough, after trailing behind in 3rd place after the erroneous start, Flores soon regained his position in 1rst, also clearly thanks to some strategic driving that incorporated a praiseworthy racing line especially along the turns – an advantage that was obvious, against the competition. It seems like the prelude to the SEMA event held at the Clark Speedway early this February (which Team DLSU also participated in) is paying off, in experience!

And to NTU Singapore’s horror, their car came to a complete halt right before the last turn, just a few hundred meters before the finish line! This, alongside a series of other car incidents (other cars simply stopping or running out of consumable energy) among the remaining competitors paved the way for consistent cars Bengawan Team 2 and ITS Team 2 – both from Indonesia – to finish 2nd and 3rd place... completing the lineup at the Podium. Both teams, together with DLSU’s Eco Car – I.C.E. have earned themselves a place to compete in the Driver’s World Championship Grand Final, to be held at the Make the Future Live in London, UK on May 28, 2017.

There, these 3 Asian teams will be pitted against the best 3 teams from the DWC Americas (held at Make the Future Detroit) and DWC Europe (held at Make the Future London), for the title of overall Grand Final Champion. And the team of the Grand Final Champion will earn themselves an awesome opportunity to experience Scuderia Ferrari in Maranello, Italy.

“Marrying efficiency with speed has never been easy,” explained Norman Koch, Shell Ecomarathon’s General Manager. “But I am confident that this competition will uncover some impressive automotive technology for the future,” he added. Furthering that “It will also add even more excitement to the on-track action at Shell Ecomarathon, which is great for everyone involved.”

The Drivers’ World Championship is so far the only aspect of the Shell Ecomarathon that successfully marries the quest for fuel efficiency and speed.