Welcome back!

We hope you had a joyful and well-deserved holiday season, and we’d like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year. Whether you spent the break traveling, celebrating with family and friends, or simply taking time to rest and recharge, we hope it was filled with good moments and a chance to reset heading into 2026.

While the team stepped away from classes and exams over the holidays, the passion for building continued. Members continued to stop by the shop throughout winter break, keeping manufacturing moving and setting the stage for a strong start to the new year. As we return to campus, we’re excited to carry that energy forward and dive into an exciting and busy winter term together.

In this edition: 

• Women in Motorsports Panel 

• Pit Lane Perspectives: Driverless Technical Director, Justin Lim

• Welding & Soldering Begins

Let’s get started.

Women in Motorsports Panel

Our Women in Motorsports panel is happening on February 5th at Innis Town Hall, and we’re excited to kick off the new year with a panel highlighting diverse careers across the motorsport industry. This event is open to everyone, and we welcome students and community members interested in learning more about how women are breaking boundaries in motorsports.

We’re excited to announce our first two speakers, Jessica Trafford and Taylor Lamb. Jessica works in motorsports media and marketing, collaborating with the NASCAR Canada Series, select IMSA teams, and Canadian racing organizations to manage social media, public relations, and brand strategy, and is also part of the broadcast team for the Radical Academy eSports League. Taylor is a Damper Design Engineer at Multimatic and holds a Master’s degree in Motorsport Engineering from Oxford Brookes University, offering a technical engineering perspective.

We look forward to welcoming everyone for an engaging conversation to start the year. Get your tickets here.

Pit Lane Perspectives: How Justin Lim is Coding the Future of UTFR

This issue, we sat down with UTFR’s Driverless Director, Justin Lim, to discuss the unique challenges of building a race car that drives itself. From a complete overhaul of the vehicle’s "brain" to the lessons learned from the automotive industry, Justin’s approach to the season is defined by technical ambition and a drive to do something undeniably cool.

The Novelty of the Challenge

Justin joined UTFR in 2022 in his first year at university, drawn in by the sheer novelty of the challenge. While he thought motorsports was interesting, the idea of a student team building an autonomous race car hooked him immediately. “I don't think anybody coming out of high school thinks they could be working on a self-driving car in their first year," he says.

Initially interested in the processes of mapping the unknown environment around the race car while simultaneously estimating its position within that map, Justin was steered towards the planning section, the decision-making side of the software, by former director Kelvin Cui. It was there that he found his niche, enjoying the logic and strategy required to make the car “think”. Now, as director, he oversees all driverless sections, as well as the integration with the mechanical and electrical systems to ensure the race car can perform safely and competitively without a human behind the wheel.

Rewriting the Brain

This season, the driverless team is tackling a massive architectural shift: the move to four-wheel drive. This hardware change necessitates a complete change to the simulation, vehicle models, and control systems.

A significant upgrade this year is the implementation of a Model Predictive Controller. “Last year, we used a pure pursuit controller, a geometric path-following controller that steers the vehicle by chasing a point ahead on the planned path”, Justin explains. “Now, we’re actively following the path using a detailed vehicle model”. 

This shift allows the team to push the vehicle’s limits, incorporating torque vectoring to manage the new four-wheel drive powertrain. The goal is to maximize performance while maintaining the absolute stability required for an autonomous machine.

The Human Variable

Transitioning into the Director role brought a challenge Justin hadn’t entirely anticipated: the shift from technical work to team management.

“It’s much more people management than I thought” he admits. “You think that there's still a lot of technical work, but at the end of the day it’s making sure everybody is on track and on time.”

Leading a diverse team of engineers has taught him that while everyone shares the ultimate goal of a successful car, the path there varies for each individual. “Everybody shares the same goal, but everybody is motivated slightly differently” he observes.

Learning to adjust his approach to fit the person has been a key part of his evolution as a leader. His goal now is ensuring the team crosses the finish line as a unit: "I think my role is bringing every team member together and ensuring they reach the finish line at the same time", he explains.

Lessons from Multimatic

Currently months into an internship at Multimatic, Justin has found that his industry experience has fundamentally changed how he views the Formula SAE competitions.

“As much as we find the competition rules frustrating to design around, the rules are there to keep us safe” he admits. “A lot of those rules are functional safety guidelines, and if an industry professional were to design these systems from scratch, they would probably come to a very similar conclusion.”

This mindset dictates how he manages the car’s software. “We need to make sure that the controllers are extremely stable” he says, emphasizing that you cannot tune for speed until you are certain the car won't run into a curb. It is a disciplined approach: ensure the system is safe, then slowly bring up the speed. 

The ‘Cool’ Factor

When asked what motivates him through the long nights and tight deadlines, Justin’s answer is simple: he wants to build something cool.

“The cool factor is kind of all that matters” he jokes, though the ambition behind it is serious. He recalls watching a European Formula Student team drift their autonomous car during the driverless autocross event at Formula Student Germany.

“That was pretty damn cool” he laughed. “We’re hoping to get to the point where we’re actually pushing the limits and trying to break traction”. 

With the North American competition introducing a driverless category for the first time, Justin’s dream is to see UT26 run successfully both on home soil and in Europe.  

Follow him on his journey here.

Welding & Soldering Begins

One of the biggest milestones of the winter is officially underway, welding for UT26 has begun. With final designs locked in and manufacturing preparations complete, the team is moving forward with chassis manufacturing, bringing the car’s structure to life piece by piece.

In parallel, the electronics team has officially kicked off soldering on PCBs graciously provided by RLX Solutions. This marks a critical step for the season, transforming complex schematics into physical hardware that will monitor and control UT26.

Over the coming weeks, this process will accelerate as subsystems begin integrating around the chassis, turning months of design work into something tangible. The shop is already buzzing, and this is just the beginning of a very busy manufacturing period.

Get Involved

Sponsors

UTFR’s success is made possible by our sponsors – they help us with parts, manufacturing support, design advice, and so much more.

Our 2025/26 sponsorship package is now live. To know more about our offerings and upcoming season events, please reply to this email and we will get back to you.

Alumni

Know any UTFR Alumni who would like to keep in touch with our team’s journey? Fill out this form and learn more about our alumni offerings in the next edition.

We're always looking to improve and innovate, both on and off the track. Have any thoughts on this newsletter? Ideas for future content? We want to hear from you!

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