The winners of Infiniti's global talent search initiative were announced recently and three engineering students will be provided with a career opportunity of a lifetime with quadruple World Championship winning Formula One team - Infiniti Red Bull Racing.

After a gruelling three-day world final event in the U.K. which saw 12 hopefuls from around the world competing for victory in the Infiniti Performance Engineering Academy, 23-year old William Priest from the U.K., 25-year old Eric LaRoche and 21-year old Jason Zide, both from the U.S.A. were deemed the winners.

They were judged by a panel of senior engineering personnel from Infiniti and the race team, led by Chief Technical Officer, Adrian Newey, recently announced to be taking a broader role on other special Red Bull Technology projects.

Along with a lucrative 12-month work placement with the team beginning in September, the winners will receive accommodation in the U.K., an Infiniti company car and a full salary.

With the in-depth assessment process split between Infiniti's Technical Center in Cranfield and Infiniti Red Bull Racing in Milton Keynes, the final candidates, selected from over 1,500 entrants across 100 top engineering universities worldwide, faced a series of challenges over three days relating to road car and racing car engineering.

These included practical design tasks, written exams, intense interviews and complex group exercises to test their technical ability, teamwork skills and performance under pressure. In one task, they even got a first hand insight into the role of a race engineer by working alongside four-time World Champion and Infiniti's Director of Performance, Sebastian Vettel, in the team's simulator.