Alfa Romeo Formula 1 engineer Krystina Emmanouilides has come onboard as an ambassador for Australia’s FIA Girls On Track programme.

Emmanouilides long dreamed of reaching the pinnacle of motorsport, and quickly set about pursuing the engineering route when she graduated high school in Australia.

She headed to the United Kingdom, spending four years studying a Bachelor of Motorsport Engineering with honours at Oxford Brookes University and then going on to complete her Masters at Durham University.

From there, she earnt employment in the automotive industry, initially as a vehicle dynamics engineer at Jaguar Land Rover.

Her big break came in 2018, when Emmanouilides successfully applied for a position at Sauber Motorsport, the organisation which underpins the Alfa Romeo Racing team in Formula 1, as a CFD development engineer.

Now based in Zurich, the 30-year-old is living the dream.

“I thought I would design cars growing up but I wasn’t good at drawing,” she said.

“And then in high school, I started being more interested in sciences and maths and although I had the opportunity to do design, I knew engineering was for me.

“As I grew up, the classes I was doing began to shape my interests and seeing all the pit wall engineers when watching Formula 1 on television inspired me a little, but I always knew I wanted to work in Formula 1. It really captivated me.

“When I got that opportunity with Sauber, it all happened pretty quickly and I remember having this weird feeling before my first day because I was both nervous and excited.

“But the minute I walked through the door – it was a nice feeling. It felt like home.”

Emmanouilides now wants to help the next generation of aspiring females follow their motorsport dreams too.

“I am super excited about being with Girls on Track now,” Emmanouilides added.

“I often get messages asking what I did to get where I am and how I did it, so I am really happy to be able to give as much advice as I can because my journey here was quite challenging – especially with the lack of information out there.

“If you can start increase reach of motorsport and F1 in young kids, it plants that seed and helps them see and they can have the opportunity.

“I never want to leave F1 until I am walking the hallways and there are just as many women as there are men and unless we start helping young girls to see that they do have opportunities in F1, they can be engineers and things like this are going to change.

“It’s something I am very passionate about.”