Allmandinger returns from Infiniti with new perspective, skills

Coming back to school after a summer off doing internships, working, or relaxing is a shock to the system for most students. The after-effects are a little more extreme for senior Alex Allmandinger this year, because it’s been a full 15 months since he last stepped into a classroom. 

 

Allmandinger just returned from a year in England participating in the highly exclusive Infiniti Performance Engineering Academy program. 

 

Selected from 12 finalists in the U.S., he emerged as the lone U.S. participant chosen for the 12-month placement, joining four other students from around the globe. 

 

As part of the internship, he spent time doing customer-oriented engineering at the Infiniti Technical Center. Here he worked to make cars fit what European drivers wanted and needed. From there he went to work with the Renault Sport Formula One team on aerodynamics—assignments automotive engineers everywhere could only dream of.

 

He has had internships in the automotive industry with Ford and Chrysler, but the customer-oriented engineering was a change of pace. 

 

“Formula One was really exciting,” Allmandinger said. “Because that’s kind of the pinnacle of engineering especially for aerodynamics. I don’t think there’s any automotive company in the world that does aerodynamics the way Formula One does, or thinks the way Formula One does.”

 

Much of the aerodynamics Allmandinger worked with previously was either self-taught or learned from other members of Illini Motorsports. When working with the Formula One team, Allmandinger was instructed by world-class experts in aerodynamics.  

 

“I think Formula One being the peak of aerodynamics I learned so much I can use in the future,” Allmandinger said. “On campus I’ve worked on Formula SAE projects and done aerodynamics, but the F1 version of what we do is just a million times more technical. Working in the Formula One team I was around experts in their field so it was great being around experts and learn directly first-hand these extremely advanced concepts.” 

 

Allmandinger was also able to learn from his fellow interns. He was working with one student from each of Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, and the UK. During the first portion of the internship, he shared an apartment with the student from Saudi Arabia. Then, when working with the Formula One team, the group shared a house.

 

“It was a lot of fun getting to know them and getting to learn other cultures,” Allmandinger said. “Also, working on projects and doing some of the same stuff together as well. You can see how people approach problems differently and see how that is cultural. It was really interesting to see how we work on things differently and still come to the same kind of solutions in the end.”

 

Not only did he get to learn from these interns, he now has connections all over the world and in the automotive industry, where he wants to build his career. 

 

Allmandinger will finish up his undergraduate studies with two 12 credit hour semesters and is looking forward to what the future brings, although he is unsure where he will be. 

 

“I’ve got a few options now, but it’s going to be a challenging choice,” Allmandinger said.