A young Jordanian has emerged as the UAE winner of a worldwide Infiniti talent contest, landing a dream one-year job in the UK which will see him work for the carmaker was well as Renault Sport’s Formula 1 Team.

Yazan Alhindawi, a 24-year-old student at the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi, will begin the one-year placement in the UK next month, together with six other winners from all over the world.

The Infiniti Engineering Academy, now in its fourth year, is a global search for the world’s best up-and-coming engineers. 

For 2017, seven placements were available with one winner chosen each from Asia-Pacific, Canada, China, Europe, Mexico, the UAE and US, to work with Infiniti and Renault Sport Formula One Team. 

The 2017 edition of the contest attracted over 12,000 registrations from 41 different countries, setting a new record with a near-threefold increase on last year

The UAE winner, Alhindawi was selected from thousands of entries and beat nine other finalists in an action-packed event at Infiniti Arabian Automobiles Centre in Dubai. 

The position comes complete with travel, accommodation, access to an Infiniti car, a salary and the chance to work alongside world-leading engineers at the cutting edge of the automotive and motorsport industries.

Alhindawi who is a mechanical engineering graduate and currently enrolled in a masters in health, safety and environment at the Petroleum Institute, will spend six months working at Renault Formula One Team’s Technical Center in Enstone and six months working at Infiniti’s European Technical Center in Cranfield. 

“With every edition of the Academy, we are more and more impressed by the amount of interest received from students all over the world and the incredible level of the talent attracted. Students have seen the accomplishments of our former Academy graduates, who have forged successful careers in both automotive and motorsport and, as a result, more students than ever before want to participate to get this once-in-a-lifetime engineering experience to launch their careers,” said Tommaso Volpe, Global Director, Infiniti Motorsport.

“With Formula One becoming more relevant to the automotive industry and with an increased focus of the placements this year being on the road car development, we are training a new generation of engineers who will play a key role in the crossover between the two industries,” added Volpe.

Juergen Schmitz, Managing Director, Infiniti Middle East, commented: “With another successful conclusion of the evaluation process, we are proud to announce Yazan as the winner of this truly unique programme. Through the course of the two days, he demonstrated hard work, dedication and a strong team work ethic – all of which are values that we as Infiniti value highly. We wish Yazan all the best during his tenure in the UK.”

Alhindawi said: “When my name was announced, I couldn’t believe it! I met nine other very capable and strong candidates in the final, who were all deserving of the opportunity, so I feel very fortunate to be selected as the winner. The real challenge now lies ahead and cannot wait to get started on this journey for what I believe will be a fantastic year ahead. I can’t wait to get started and I will give it all to prove I am a winner worthy of this amazing opportunity.” 

Infiniti Motor Company is headquartered in Hong Kong. Its range of premium automobiles is currently built in manufacturing facilities in Japan, the US, United Kingdom and China.