Dino Toso (11 February 1969 – 13 August 2008)Death announcement
in

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was an

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engineer who worked as the

Renault Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufacture ...

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team's Director of Aerodynamics from until June .

Career

Toso studied automotive design and electronics at

Apeldoorn Apeldoorn (; Dutch Low Saxon: ) is a municipality and city in the province of Gelderland in the centre of the Netherlands. It is located about 60 km east of Utrecht, 60 km west of Enschede, 25 km north of Arnhem and 35 km south of Zwolle. Th ...

Technical College, followed by a degree in automotive engineering. He then obtained his master's degree in aerodynamics and flight at Cranfield University in the UK. He worked at NLR - Netherlands Aerospace Centre until 1995, when he was recruited by BMW for its GT racing programme. In he moved to the

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

F1 team, where he worked as a

race engineer A race engineer is a motorsport team member who analyses data to achieve the best performance from the vehicle and driver. The race engineer communicates with the team's data analyst, mechanics, and driver, both between and during races. Off the ...

. His time at Jordan included its first win at the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix, where he engineered driver

Damon Hill Damon Graham Devereux Hill, (born 17 September 1960) is a British former professional racing driver from England and the 1996 Formula One World Champion. He is the son of Graham Hill, and, along with Nico Rosberg, one of two sons of a Formula ...

's victorious car. For the 2000 season, Toso was Jarno Trulli's race engineer. The pair would later reunite at Renault. For he followed former Jordan colleague Mike Gascoyne to Benetton, which had been sold to Renault the previous year and was rebranded as such in . At the end of he replaced the departing

John Iley John Alastair Iley (born 29 September 1967) is a British motor racing aerodynamicist, who was formerly the technical director for the Caterham F1 team. After graduating from Lanchester Polytechnic, Coventry, while studying at Imperial College, ...

as Chief Aerodynamicist. He oversaw Jarno Trulli's only Grand Prix victory in 2004, before being part of the team that developed the R25 and

R26 R26 or R-26 may refer to: Roads * R-26 regional road (Montenegro) * R26 (South Africa) Other uses * R-26 (missile), a Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile * R26 (New York City Subway car) * R-26 (salon), an artistic salon in Paris * Br ...

which won back to back Drivers and Constructors Championships. The team won seventeen during his tenure, fourteen for Fernando Alonso, two for Giancarlo Fisichella and one for Jarno Trulli. In June 2008, Toso stepped down and retired from his role due to ill health.

Personal life

Toso was married to Nathalie, and had a daughter Isabella. Toso was diagnosed with

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

in 2004. He continued to work whilst receiving treatment, but the illness was terminal. In August 2008, two months after retiring, he died at home at the age of 39. Former colleagues including Flavio Briatore,

Eddie Jordan Edmund Patrick Jordan, OBE (born 30 March 1948), also known as EJ, is an Irish businessman, television personality and former motorsport team owner. Born in Dublin, Jordan worked first at the Bank of Ireland. He won the Irish Kart Championship ...

and

attended his funeral.

References

1969 births 2008 deaths Automotive engineers Deaths from cancer in England Dutch aerospace engineers Dutch motorsport people Formula One designers Italian aerospace engineers Italian motorsport people Sportspeople from Delft Renault people Burials in Oxfordshire {{f1-bio-stub