The wait is over for a team of young hopefuls from Hongik University from Seoul, South Korea. Three students have won the Ferrari World Design Contest, beating teams from 49 other universities all around the world.

The team can now look forward to the prize, which not only includes cash prizes but also an internship at Ferrari. Hongik University beat second-place Samir Sadikhov, an Azerbaigiani student at Turin's IED (the school responsible for the Abarth ScorpION concept) and Henry Cloke (UK) and Qi Haitao (China) from the Royal College of Art in London.

We looked at the contest as it hotted up a month ago with six teams to go, but the Seoul students best met Ferrari's requirements for a future hypercar - one that not only had to look stunning and offer mind-blowing performance, but also be environmentally responsible to meet future automotive requirements, putting an emphasis on low weight and hybrid powertrains.

The design started with a 2D rendering, followed by 3D models using 3D Autodesk Alias. Finally, the team constructed a physical quarter-scale model to give judges a real impression of the car's lines.

Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo and current Ferrari Formula One driver Fernando Alonso were there to hand out the prizes, and expressed the importance of developing designers and engineers for the future. "Nurturing the creativity of young people is a fundamental strategy in every walk of life". di Montezemolo even hinted that there may even be a future for some of the ideas presented in the competition. "I am certain that some of these suggestions will come to light in the Ferraris of the future".

Further prizes were handed out for the best use of the Alias software and for the "Most Unexpected Technological Solution", which went to Hongik school and a team from Jiangnan University in China respectively.

There's no doubt the finalists' cars look stunning, and with an amateur's eye on aesthetics we have to agree that Hongik's design, Eternità, best fits our idea of a future Ferrari.

_______________________________________

Follow Motor Authority on Facebook and Twitter.