NEWS
MOTORSPORT: Infinite opportunity for young engineers
Top F1 team Red Bull Racing's partner Infiniti is searching for the best and brightest young engineering talent it can find and right now its sights are on AustraliaFor every Formula One driver there are dozen of engineers in the sport’s 11 teams to make the cars go fast and faster.
Predominantly the engineers are men, sometimes women.
Top of the pile is Adrian Newey, technical director of Red Bull Racing and the creator of 10 cars with which 10 drivers’ and 10 constructors’ world championships have been won.
Now an Australian student could get the chance to work at RBR for a year. Not directly alongside or under Newey perhaps, but among the 600 people in the team based at Milton Keynes, north of London .
RBR has won the constructors’ world title the past four years and in its machinery German Sebastian Vettel has won the drivers’ title in each of those seasons.
The possibility for a budding Australian engineer to work at RBR comes about through the Infiniti Performance Engineering Academy.
Nissan’s prestige car brand Infiniti is RBR’s ‘Title and Vehicle Performance Partner’.
The power units – previously called simply engines, but with lots of add-ons now – in RBR’s F1 cars are built by Nissan’s sister brand Renault.
While RBR’s dominance of the sport is under serious challenge in the season starting in Melbourne this weekend after the biggest rule changes in history, the Infiniti Performance Engineering Academy is a sign of determination to remain at the forefront.
The academy is billed as “a global search for the world’s best and brightest emerging engineering talent”.
It will place three young engineers at RBR for a year from September. They will come from among 12 nominated countries.
Australia is one of them, and RBR and Infiniti identified Melbourne’s Monash University as a talent pool to target specifically.
Monash has a history of success in Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) competition, in which students build miniature open-wheeler racing cars to compete against other universities – nationally and internationally.
Monash Motorsport is ranked second among 513 participating uni teams in the world.
Infiniti’s F1 global director Andreas Sigl and RBR chief engineer Paul Monaghan visited Monash Uni this week to address students on the academy, introducing RBR’s new Australian driver Daniel Ricciardo to them at the end.
Sigl left knowing that the academy will have at least a couple of dozen applicants from Monash students by the April 11 deadline for the 12-month placement at RBR.
Candidates – who must be studying an engineering or relevant science degree and be graduating or in their final year of undergraduate study this year – need to register first, then await an invitation to apply.
When applying they will be required to submit an essay of less than 500 words on “What future technology should F1 be incorporating to keep road-relevant?”
They will have to show an understanding of F1, demonstrating creative and original thinking, and link that to the wider automotive industry and Infiniti road cars in particular.
A dozen applicants will be chosen to go to the Infiniti Technical Centre Europe in Britain for a day, then two days at RBR in the week leading up to the British Grand Prix at the start of July.
They will be required to make 10-minute presentations and be assessed – by senior engineers, marketers and human resources people – for aptitude, knowledge and how well they work in a team environment.
The three chosen to be placed at RBR will receive not only a salary but accommodation and a car.
Sigl said Infiniti would be investing in exceptionally talented people who could remain in F1 or may prefer the road car industry.
“We’re looking for people with technical prowess and ambition, but also real character,” Sigl said.
“We want the next generation of fresh-thinking engineers.”
Sam Michael is one Australian engineer to have risen through the F1 ranks in recent years – from the former Jordan team, where he was victorious race engineer, to technical director at Williams and now sporting director at McLaren.
The greatest of Australian race engineers though was Ron Tauranac, who designed cars Sir Jack Brabham raced in the 1960s – including the Repco-engined BT19 in which he won his third world title.
Perhaps Infiniti’s academy will unearth another Sam Michael, Ron Tauranac, even the next Adrian Newey, out of Australia.
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Written byGeoffrey Harris
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If the price does not contain the notation that it is "Drive Away", the price may not include additional costs, such as stamp duty and other government charges.
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