Alex Hitzinger

Hitzinger was born in Passau, Germany. He has been interested in motorsports since he was a teenager. Different from most boys, who are fascinated by fast cars, he was mainly interested in the technical aspects of the car. He studied mechanical engineering at University of Applied Sciences Landshut as an undergraduate and earned an MBA from Warwick Business School at University of Warwick, UK.

Hitzinger's first job in the automotive industry was at Toyota Motorsport as a development engineer. Hitzinger moved to Cosworth together with World Rally Champion Carlos Sainz, when Carlos changed team from Toyota to Ford. At Cosworth, he firstly worked as Head of the Ford-Cosworth World Rally Championship programme and then as Head of F1 Development. In 2005, at the age of 34, Hitzinger was one of the youngest chief engineers in F1.

Under Hitzinger’s leadership, in 2006, Cosworth F1 team developed the first ever F1 engine (Cosworth CA, 2.4 Litre, V8 ) to attain 20,000 rpm at the track, despite the difficult circumstances (under budget and small number of staff). This set a new standard at the time for F1 engines.

From 2006 to 2011 he worked as Head of Advanced Technologies for Red Bull Technology and from mid-2006 and mid-2007 he also filled the role of Technical Director of the Scuderia Toro Rosso Formula One team.

Since 2011, Hitzinger has been Technical Director of the Porsche LMP1 project. On 14 March 2016, it was announced that Alex Hitzinger was leaving Porsche.

On 16 December 2016 it was reported that Hitzinger is working for Apple on its Project Titan electric car project.