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Infiniti invites 22-year-old to work with Red Bull F1 team

Infiniti launched the Infiniti Performance Engineering Academy (IPEA) in 2014, a global talent search for three engineering students from eleven international markets that the automaker would select for a one-year assignment with its Formula One team and road car division. The second year's IPEA competition has concluded, the class of 2015 expanding to five students that get eight months at Infiniti Red Bull Racing headquarters in Milton Keynes, and four months at the company's European Technical Center in Cranfield, UK. Twenty-two-year-old Alex Allmandinger (pictured), a student at the University of Illinois and one of 11 US finalists, is one of those five winners. He'll head to Milton Keynes next month to settle in with the other winners from China, Europe, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Based on interviews with last year's winners, the IPEA doesn't stick the students in a corner, either – one of them said he had designed seventy parts that went into the RB11 F1 racecar. The video above speaks to some of this year's winners, the video below talks to last year's, and there's a press release below that. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Infiniti gives one U.S. engineering student the Formula One career opportunity of a lifetime NASHVILLE, Tenn. Aug. 20, 2015 – Infiniti has announced that an engineering student from the University of Illinois is one of five global winners of the 2015 Infiniti Performance Engineering Academy (IPEA). For one year, Infiniti will provide 22-year-old Alex Allmandinger with the opportunity to work in Formula One with the Infiniti Red Bull Racing team. After beating 11 other finalists from around the country in an intense shootout event, Allmandinger will move to Infiniti Red Bull Racing headquarters in the UK in September to begin a 12-month placement working with the four-time Formula One World Championship Infiniti Red Bull Racing team, as well as with Infiniti. Allmandinger will spend eight months working on Vehicle Design at the team's headquarters in Milton Keynes, UK – and four months working at Infiniti's European Technical Center in Cranfield – on road car development projects. Formula One technology is more relevant to the automotive industry than ever and will play a key role in the ongoing transfer of technical knowledge and expertise between the race team and Infiniti.

Red Bull to run TAG Heuer-branded engines next season

After a drawn-out and very public effort to switch to a different engine supplier, Red Bull Racing will once again be running under Renault power next season. Only it won't be labeled as a Renault. Instead, it will be branded by TAG Heuer. Now if you're thinking that TAG Heuer was in the McLaren camp, you were right up until today's announcement. One of McLaren's oldest partners, the watchmaker jumped ship to join up with Red Bull instead, ostensibly replacing Casio as the team's official timekeeper. Now here's where it gets a little tricky: Mansour Ojjeh and his Techniques d'Avant Garde holding company remain a major stakeholder in McLaren. The firm owned Tag Heuer from 1985 to 1999; now its former watch brand is leaving for Red Bull. This isn't the first time that the TAG name has transferred from one F1 team to another, nor is it the first time we'll see its name replace that of a major automaker on an F1 engine. Techniques d'Avant Garde previously partnered with Williams before Ron Dennis took over in Woking and convinced Ojjeh to come on board. That partnership saw TAG work with Porsche on a successful F1 engine program that won three drivers' championships (with Niki Lauda and Alain Prost), two constructors' titles, and 25 grands prix. While unusual, the deal is hardly unprecedented. Aside from the McLaren-TAG-Porsche arrangement, Sauber once ran Ferrari engines under the brand of its sponsor Petronas (which has long since switched to Mercedes). For another example, the 1998 world championship saw Benetton running Renault engines under the Playlife name, while Williams rebranded its version as Mecachrome, as the French automaker shifted its priorities in F1 much as it is right now. The announcement still leaves a few questions unanswered, however. For one, will Red Bull continue running TAG Heuer-branded engines made by Renault (or another supplier) after 2016? And what does this spell for Infiniti, Renault's sister-brand that has sponsored the team for the past several years? Infiniti declined to comment, but we're told there'll be some sort of announcement early next week. Red Bull Racing to drive forward with TAG Heuer power unit in 2016 From the milliseconds that separate victory from defeat to the finely balanced and perfectly measured rhythm of a racing engine, in motorsport timing is everything.

Infiniti hires Sebastian Vettel as Director of Performance

Remember when, during the Grand Prix of the Americas weekend last November, we told you that Sebastian Vettel had worked with Infiniti on the new G Coupe and that there'd be more of that kind of involvement on the way? It's been made official with the three-time Formula One World Champion being named Infiniti's Director of Performance.
Although the announcement is fresh, Vettel's time on the job isn't, Infiniti saying that Vettel went to Japan, the Nürburgring and the Circuit de Catalunya to assist in the development of the Q50 sedan.
When we spoke to Andreas Sigl, the man in charge of Infiniti's F1 collaboration with Red Bull, about the tie-up he had also said, "Like Mercedes has AMG and BMW has M - whether it's called IPL or not - we want to have something in that space." If the brand is still serious about that, Vettel's chops could help them deliver the kind of performance they'd need as upstarts to challenge the ringleaders of that particular hi-po circus.