Williams and Autosport have announced the names of the five finalists for the inaugural Autosport Williams Engineer of the Future Award that will name an engineering student from a UK university as a rising star of Formula One engineering and support them with an accelerated career development programme at Williams.

Following a targeted application process that saw eight UK universities nominate their star engineering students for consideration

Andrew Lightbody, University of Bath
Callum Frith, Imperial College London
Oisin Scolard, Oxford Brookes University
Elizabeth Thompson, University of Oxford
James Nurse, Loughborough University

have been selected to take part in an assessment workshop at the Williams HQ in Grove on 18 and 19 November 2015 where they’ll complete a number of tasks designed to test their engineering know-how, team work, problem solving skills and personality fit. The students will be assessed by a panel of judges:

Pat Symonds, Williams’ Chief Technical Officer and Nicola Salter, HR Director
Edd Straw, Editor of Autosport magazine
Tony Purnell, former Team Principal of the Jaguar and Red Bull Formula One teams and Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor at the University of Cambridge.

The winner will be revealed at the annual Autosport Awards on 6 December and be offered an initial two-year placement in an accelerated development programme that will see them mentored by senior engineers and rotate through various areas of Williams before they find their specialism. During the placement they will also get the opportunity to work in the team’s race operations division and gain experience at a Grand Prix.