Gator Motorsports captain races against the clock in his last year on the team

Daniel Patel has one more chance to bring his Gator Motorsports team to the podium. He’s not leaving anything on the circuit.

Gator Motorsports, a student organization founded in 1991, designs, builds and manufactures formula-style cars in its garage across from Gator Corner Dining Center. Members work all year to complete a car for the annual Formula Society of Automotive Engineers competition in Brooklyn, Michigan.

Patel decided to join the team at his freshman orientation in Summer 2022 after nervously browsing different organizations looking for people to meet. Four years later, the 21-year-old UF materials science and engineering senior is the team captain. 

Patel is looking to lead the young group to its first podium finish since 2021 at the upcoming FSAE competition in May 2026. It’s his last chance to do so, as he plans to retire after this season to focus on school. He’s one of the youngest captains in the team’s history — but still the oldest among a freshman- and sophomore-dominated roster.

Patel said he’s on a mission to overcome recent struggles at the FSAE tournament, such as when last year’s car was unable to make it through the endurance test.

To support his fresh team, Patel is establishing monthly lectures for new members while growing personally as a leader and setting the foundation for future teams. 

"If the team is doing really, really well, it's always representative of the whole team, but if the team is doing really, really bad, it ends up falling on the captain," Patel said. "There's nobody else above me to pivot blame to or ask for additional points. ... The buck stops with me."

Narrowing in on aerodynamics

Before taking the helm as captain, Patel rose through the ranks in the aerodynamics team, becoming the system engineer and then aerospace lead. The subgroup is responsible for choosing the best possible materials for each car to maximize speed.

Now, he’s the first captain in the team's history to emerge from the aerodynamics branch. The team’s members previously had limited collective knowledge of aerodynamics, he said. But this year, Patel is encouraging the team to strengthen that skill.

This year, the team’s strategy toward racing has become composites-focused, prioritizing creating materials like carbon fiber to increase a car’s strength while decreasing its weight, he said.

"That's the direction we're going to lean toward,” Patel said. “You need somebody who really understands the outside of that area to be able to develop a car."

The team is focusing on the car’s aerodynamics by building a custom inverter for this year's car, the Michigan 26, rather than using an off-the-shelf version as it did previously.

The inverter is the electronic brain bridging the battery and the motor. With a custom inverter, members can access more data on whether the motor provides enough electricity to power the car, because the team’s electrical department programmed it rather than another company. 

With this increase in information provided to the team, members can make more adjustments during test runs to improve the car's performance, something the team has struggled with since the 2021 tournament.

Sean Niemi, the team’s faculty adviser at UF, said Patel has corrected mistakes from previous competitions to make the most out of his last chance. For this year's Michigan 26, Patel created a checklist to ensure they wouldn't repeat the mistakes that held them back last year.

"He's seen a lot of things not go right," Niemi said. "Having seen multiple cars built, he's also seen multiple cars struggle getting through a competition."

Using youth as an advantage

Outside the track, Patel said, he looks to grow as a leader with a much younger team. Last year’s group of leaders had significant experience, and most were 23 years old. Patel is one of the youngest captains in the team's history and still the oldest member of the team.

Kevin Lizardo, a 20-year-old UF mechanical engineering junior and chief engineer, said the team’s youth is both a challenge and an advantage.

"They're pretty scrappy," Lizardo said. "They always feel like they have something to prove, which is a phenomenal attitude to bring to the shop." 

New members also bring in new ideas that older members might not raise, Lizardo said.

As a freshman, Patel said, he was paradoxically rash and timid — lacking patience in his project but also lacking confidence in his abilities. As captain, he looks to help younger team members navigate growing pains so they can lead in future years. 

"He's learned a lot," Niemi said. "He's overcome a lot of challenges. … He's still growing and pushing ahead and trying to figure out how to go from managing one system, with one or two other people, to now managing a team of 40 to 60 to 80 members, depending on the day."

Patel said one of the biggest challenges of becoming captain is growing into a “people person,” leaving behind his more introverted side that took a significant part of his character when he first joined. 

He also said he’s worked on ensuring he is both critical enough of the team's work and comforting to the newcomers, so their morale remains high and encourages them to push through the hard work.

"It's important to make it clear that it's about the design or the specific technical issue and not them as a person,” said Lucja Stawikowska, Gator Motorsports’ chief engineer and a 20-year-old UF mechanical engineering senior.

Patel said he wanted to improve the communication among the team’s nine different departments. During the team’s weekly meetings, each lead is required to provide updates on their staff’s accomplishments. This helps the entire team determine the car's readiness for the FSAE competition.

Department leaders hold lectures once a month to break down the technical concepts and production aspects to new members.

Stawikowska said these mandatory lectures have made all the difference for new members. When she first joined the team, Stawikowska said, different abbreviations and technological jargon confused her at weekly team meetings.

"It was something that I felt like was a barrier to my integration into the team," she said. "It's definitely a good idea, those changes that he's trying to implement."

With all these changes, Patel looks to make a lasting impact on the program's history by returning to the podium. It’s a goal others on the team share, too.

"Everybody wants to see the car podium," Lizardo said. "It's definitely gonna be an amazing feeling when we make it up there."

Contact Jeffrey Serber at Jserber@alligator.org. Follow him on X @JeffreySerber.

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