Formula 1 is considered an important motorsport event that has driven the development of cutting-edge automotive technology. Similarly, virtual formula competition is introduced at the university level to harness technological advances for automotive development among universities. Performance and fuel efficiency have always been two conflicting objectives in determining the optimal powertrain design. In this paper, state-of-the-art multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) are employed to optimize the vehicle powertrain design based on competing event and the ontrack performance through software in-the-loop optimization approach. Unlike conventional powertrain optimization approach where the powertrain design is optimized again standard urban driving profiles to achieve optimum driving performance and fuel consumption which is not suitable to be employed to optimize race car powertrain design. The powertrain design is optimized and benchmarked in multiple dynamic test events i.e. Acceleration, Autocross and Endurance. Each event measures different performance parameters (i.e. lap time and fuel consumption) A total of nine design parameters are optimized in this study. Three design parameters (employed to formulate the progressive gear calculation of six gear ratios), five gear shifting rpm (revolutions per minute) and an aerodynamic downforce scale value (for front and rear downforce). Two stages of optimization solution are proposed to handle such complicated design requirement. NSGA-II was identified as the most efficient algorithms among the MOEAs employed in this study; especially in terms of computational time, Pareto distribution and Pareto design. Overall, the optimized powertrain design showed significant improvement in all events i.e. energy efficiency was increased by 13.7% for the endurance event while lap time was reduced by 0.7 and 1.2% in the acceleration and autocross events, respectively.