INFINITI ENGINEERING ACADEMY WINNERS BEGIN THEIR DREAM CAREERS IN FORMULA ONE

November 14, 2016 by Infiniti

Hong Kong – Exciting new chapters began this month in the careers of the seven winners of the 2016 INFINITI Engineering Academy, as they started their dream engineering placements with INFINITI and the Renault Sport Formula One™ Team.

The winners were initially selected from more than 4,000 hopefuls, having beaten nine of their qualifier peers in their respective regional final events around the world. The university students and budding young engineering talents have now spent their first days in their new job roles in the UK.

Caitlin Bunt (24, USA), Felix Lamy (21, Canada), Alexandros Palaiologos (24, Mexico), Riccardo Manfredini (24, Italy), Xuezi Li (23, China), Shihab Solaiman (23, UAE) and Jaden Partridge (21, Australia), all won a once-in-a-lifetime, 12-month placement - split between automotive and Formula One™ engineering - plus accommodation, access to an INFINITI Q30 company car and a full salary.

Having relocated to the UK and now sharing two Academy houses near their work placements - at the INFINITI Technical Center in Cranfield (Milton Keynes) and the Renault Sport Formula One Team in Enstone (Oxfordshire) - the winners of the third successive and biggest yet edition of the Academy have moved into their new homes, taken induction courses at each of the engineering centers and met their senior engineer mentors. A busy first few days that are indicative of the 12-month program ahead for each new engineer.

Technology transfer

A key pillar of the INFINITI Engineering Academy is exploring crossover opportunities and the sharing of technology between INFINITI road car and Renault Sport Formula One race car projects. As the seven Academy winners split their placements in half between each company, they will be the driving forces behind this technology transfer. These exchanges of key primary data will benefit INFINITI road car customers and the Formula One™ racing team.

INFINITI's Technical Partnership with the Renault Sport Formula One™ Team was formed at the beginning of the 2016 racing season. The partnership was born out of a desire to communicate the technical story of INFINITI's performance credentials and knowhow, most notably their market lead in high performance road car hybrid technology, similar to that used in Formula One™.

INFINITI road car models deploy powerful electric energy through their hybrid powertrains to boost performance, and INFINITI engineers already lend their expertise in this area to the F1™ team.

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INFINITI's extensive research and development laboratories also assist the Formula One™ engineers in other areas too. For example, INFINITI's modern 7-post chassis testing rig will be the perfect test bed for the race team's 2017 race car chassis development. It can exert the immense forces required to mimic the great real-world forces that will be generated by the new era of wider tire, higher grip Formula One™ cars, set to race for the first time in 2017.

'With Formula One more relevant to the automotive industry than ever and our Academy engineers at the cutting edge of both automotive and motorsport engineering, we are perfectly placed to explore, understand and encourage the crossover of technology between our two companies and disciplines,' said Tommaso Volpe, Global Director, INFINITI Motorsport. 'The Academy engineers will meet monthly, alongside their mentors, to share the freshest thinking and brightest ideas between the two industries. INFINITI as a global brand brings two key elements to the Renault Sport Formula One Team: expertise in the Energy Recovery Systems (ERS) through its Performance Hybrid technology, and an international diversity of young, fresh thinking engineering talent, thanks to the INFINITI Engineering Academy.'

New facets to the competition

The 2016 Academy winners' journeys will be more closely documented than ever before, with the commissioning for the first time of a documentary to follow them. With filming soon to commence, the engineers' cutting edge projects will be recorded, as will an exciting extra element to their 12-month placements – the chance to win just one engineering place with the Renault Sport Formula One™ Team at the first race of the 2017 season in Melbourne, Australia, in March.

Based on two challenges – one in automotive engineering and one in Formula One™ engineering – the top performing Academy engineer will fly to Australia for this incredible opportunity. The engineering competition within the Academy isn't over yet.

The 2016 Academy winners will wish to emulate the 2015 INFINITI Engineering Academy European winner, Daniel Sanham, who has signed a contract with the Renault Sport Formula One Team to commence work in July 2017, after completing the final year of his electrical engineering degree at Nottingham University, U.K.

From a once-in-a-lifetime engineering career opportunity with the INFINITI Engineering Academy, to a dream job with a historic Formula One team, Daniel is one of several Academy success stories; an inspiration to this year's winners and future winners.