University of Florida Students Build Cars and Compete With Gator Motorsport

In this week’s Tech Tuesday, UF Innovate spotlights Gator Motorsports, where University of Florida students design, build, and race a Formula-style car while gaining real-world engineering and management experience.

“Building a car from scratch is exactly as hard as it sounds. We’re here with Gator Motorsports to learn more. Daniel, tell us more about who you are and what you do,” said Bethany Gaffey, host of UF Innovate.

“Yeah, I am the captain of Gator Motorsports for the F ’25 to F ’26 season. Every year, we build a two-thirds formula car, just like this one, from scratch to compete at the Michigan International Speedway. I basically am in a project management role, so I oversee two chief engineers underneath me and we oversee about 40 engineers every year to build our car,” said Daniel Patel, team captain of Gator Motorsports.

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