Infiniti has announced the winners of its global talent search, which will see three engineering students given a unique career opportunity with Infiniti Red Bull Racing, the World Championship-winning Formula One team.
After a gruelling three-day world final event in the UK, which saw 12 hopefuls from around the world competing for victory in the Infiniti Performance Engineering Academy, it was William Priest (23) from Buckingham-shire (UK), Eric LaRoche (25) from New Jersey (USA), and Jason Zide (21) from California (USA) that were announced as the winners.
Along with a lucrative 12-month work placement with the team that began in September, the winners benefit from accommodation in the UK, an Infiniti Q50 company car and a full salary.
With the in-depth assessment process split between Infiniti’s Technical Centre in Cranfield and Infiniti Red Bull Racing in Milton Keynes, the final candidates (selected from over 1,500 entrants in the 100 top engineering universities world-wide) faced a series of challenges over three days relating to road- and racing-car engineering.
In one task, they even got a first-hand insight into the role of a race engineer by working alongside four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel in the team’s simulator.
Andreas Sigl, global director at Infiniti Formula One, said: “The three winners demonstrated not just a natural aptitude for engineering and an excellent work ethic, but also a real understanding of the benefits Formula One can bring a road-car company like Infiniti and the potential for even greater technical crossover in the future.”