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

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was an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

- Dutch engineer who worked as the

Renault Renault S.A., commonly referred to as Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English), is a French Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company curr ...

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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. The municipality of Apeldoorn, including the villages of Beekbergen, Loenen (Apeldoorn), Loenen, Ugchelen and Hoenderloo ...

Technical College, followed by a degree in automotive engineering. He then obtained his master's degree in aerodynamics and flight at

Cranfield University Cranfield University is a postgraduate-only public research university in the United Kingdom that specialises in science, engineering, design, technology and management. Cranfield was founded as the College of Aeronautics (CoA) in 1946. Throug ...

in the UK. He worked at NLR - Netherlands Aerospace Centre until 1995, when he was recruited by

BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, trading as BMW Group (commonly abbreviated to BMW (), sometimes anglicised as Bavarian Motor Works), is a German multinational manufacturer of vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Th ...

for its GT racing programme. In he moved to the

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

F1 team, where he worked as a race engineer. His time at Jordan included its first win at the

1998 Belgian Grand Prix The 1998 Belgian Grand Prix (formally the LVI Foster's Belgian Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on 30 August 1998 at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps; it was the thirteenth race of the 1998 FIA Formula One World Championship. The race ...

, where he engineered driver Damon Hill'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 as Chief Aerodynamicist. He oversaw Jarno Trulli's only Grand Prix victory in

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, before being part of the team that developed the R25 and R26 which won back to back Drivers and Constructors Championships. The team won seventeen during his tenure, fourteen for

Fernando Alonso Fernando Alonso Díaz (; born 29 July 1981) is a Spanish racing driver who competes in Formula One for Aston Martin in Formula One, Aston Martin. Alonso has won two Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles, which he won in and with ...

, two for

Giancarlo Fisichella Giancarlo "Giano" Fisichella (; born 14 January 1973), also known as Fisico or Fisi, is an Italian racing driver and motorsport executive, who competed in Formula One from to . Fisichella won three Formula One Grands Prix across 14 seasons. Bo ...

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 Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

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 and Damon Hill 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