World Motorsport Symposium Awards shortlist announced

Reaction Engines, Bcomp and TotalEnergies are among those shortlisted for this year’s World Motorsport Symposium Awards 2022.

The Awards dinner will feature McLaren Applied’s new Award, The Female Engineer of the Year, designed to recognise inspirational women blazing a trail in motorsport.

Krystina Emmanouilides, a CFD Development Engineer at Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN F1 Team, a Motorsport Australia FIA Girls on Track ambassador, and a Racing Pride Director and Industry Ambassador has been shortlisted along with Charlotte Phelps who has been nominated for her ongoing and tireless effort to train and diversify the next generation of drivers. Principal Strategy Engineer for Oracle Red Bull Racing, Hannah Schmitz, has also been shortlisted. Schmitz and her team calculate and analyse billions of data points alongside simulating scenarios that will define what will happen across a race weekend.

TotalEnergies and Bcomp have been shortlised for the William Kimberley Green Tech Award.

Reaction Engines, Geobrugg, Allengra GmbH, Evolution Measurement and Ansible Motion have been shortlisted for the Don Burgoon Most Innovative New Product of the Year.

For the Dino Toso Racecar Aerodynamicist of the year, Dr Rob Lewis has been nominated for Catesby Tunnel, a project transforming a Victorian railway tunnel into the world’s largest indoor aerodynamic test facility became a reality.

Meanwhile, McMurtry Automotive has been nominated for its McMurtry Spéirling, a rear wheel-drive single-seater features the same footprint as a Formula 1 car from the early 1960s but boasts an all-electric powertrain in a carbon monocoque and has a power-to-weight ratio of 1,000 bhp-per-tonne, beating a Goodwood record that had stood for more than 20 years.

Oracle Red Bull Racing was also nominated in this category for the RB18.  When even Red Bull’s fiercest rivals grudgingly acknowledge that the Milton Keynes team did the best job of reacting to F1’s aerodynamics overhaul, it speaks volumes for a car that will go down as one of the most successful in history.

Lastly, Team Peugeot TotalEnergies has been nominated for its 9X8 WEC racecar. Peugeot’s 9X8 hybrid Hypercar began life as a 51.1 GB digital project, made up of 15,267 files. Not until its launch, after what the team claims was nearly two years spent in the virtual domain, did it become evident that a file was missing: the one containing the rear wing!

In the Race Powertrain of the year category, Team Audi Sport has been nominated for its RS Q e-tron powertrain, Mercedes High Performance Powertrains has been nominated for its Mercedes-EQ Formula E Powertrain. Swindon Powertrain has been nominated for its BTCC engine Formula E powertrain and Toyota GAZOO Racing for its Le Mans Hypercar powertrain.

Winners will be announced this evening at Mosimann’s Club in Belgravia.

The full report of all the nominees can be found in the latest issue of RACE TECH Magazine here.