Ouais_supère a écrit:Ce forum est dans un état...
Dino Vittorio Marcellinus Toso
The former Renault F1 aerodynamicist died last week at the tender age of 39, following a four-year battle with cancer. Bradley Lord, his colleague as Renault's press officer during their championship seasons of 2005 and 2006, remembers a true hero
By Bradley Lord
F1 Racing features editor
Dino Toso accepts the 2006 Autosport Award for the International Racing Car of the year
Formula One is a world of heroes. The drivers play out their battles on the track from week to week, but they are simple ciphers for the true heroes of each team - the invisible men and women in each factory, working every hour God sends to propel their team forwards.
On Wednesday 13th August, one of those silent heroes slipped peacefully from this world after a fight against cancer that defied all medical prognoses and redefined the strength of the human spirit. He was just 39 years old. And without him, our sport, and our world, are poorer places.
For Dino Toso, aerodynamics, or rather fluid dynamics, began in the water-filled fields around the south Holland city of Delft. As a small boy, he channelled water, made dams, learned about flow. His gift was an intuitive, practical understanding of what happens to air when it passes over a racing car.
He could see and feel what was right, and what was wrong, with any design; he took a special pride in making the cars his department developed not just things of devastating performance, but very real beauty too. That gift was anchored in, and learned from, the soil of his homeland. And from the very beginning, his mother knew him as an explorer and a discoverer.
"Why, why, why?" little Dino would ask as he encountered a new problem. "Why, why, why?" he would keep on asking, right up to his final days.
Studies in automotive design and electronics at Apeldoorn Technical College - including a final degree project that involved tuning Ferrari F40s - were followed by a post-grad degree in automotive engineering, then a move to Cranfield, UK, to study for his masters in aerodynamics and flight. All his savings went into the move - and he spoke little English.
He attended lectures and classes during the day, then went home to repeat the same lectures and lessons, an English-Dutch dictionary by his side, until he had mastered every single concept. He didn't have a name to propel him, or money; nothing but hard work and dedication. In the very truest sense of the word, he was a self-made man.
Gianni Morbidelli © LAT
Cranfield was duly followed by the routine of the Dutch national aerospace laboratory - until Dino realised he could spend his generous holiday allowance going motor racing. Overtime and night shifts were worked so he could store up holiday to go down to Italy and engineer touring cars. The racing bug had bitten, and the wind tunnel was soon a distant memory as he moved to Liguria in 1996, chasing tenths of a second on circuits around Europe as a race engineer for BMW Italy's Class 2 touring car team. The first driver he worked with was Gianni Morbidelli, who was drafted in to BMW's team for three races that season.
"It was one of Dino's first experiences with racing cars," remembers Morbidelli. "Right from the start, he was a very human, genuine guy and I understood he had a lot of quality. I was working with Jordan that year as test driver, so I said to Dino: 'There's not enough for you here - do you want to try and look for work in F1?' He was a little bit shy about it, but I spoke with Gary Anderson to tell him about this unbelievable guy I was working with.
"The real pleasure was to meet Dino again after two years: I realised he was so happy, so glad to be there and he appreciated what I had done, although to be honest I did practically nothing. Normally, relationships in motorsport happen because you're involved in the same job or because of business. But Dino was one of the most human people I ever met in this world."
Dino's interview at Jordan was conducted by Sam Michael (now Williams Technical Director) and Gary Anderson. "He told us he'd work every race and every test," recalls Sam. "Gary and I took one look at each other - and said we'd take him!" Although his first role was as a vehicle dynamics engineer (including data engineering at the track), a year later Dino had been promoted to the role of senior race engineer.
He worked with Damon Hill throughout 1998 and 1999, guiding the Briton to the team's famous first win the rains of Spa. For 2000, Jarno Trulli joined the team and began working with Dino. It marked the beginning of an enduring friendship.
By the end of 2000, Renault was recruiting - laying the foundations for the success that followed later in the decade. Dino joined the aero department, returning to his real engineering speciality, initially as a Senior Aerodynamicist, then Deputy Head of Aero, and finally promoted to Head of Department in August 2003 when John Iley left for Ferrari. "He found his true vocation with his position as Head of Aerodynamics at Renault," remembers Gary Anderson. "Dino brought a whole new direction to this area of development that ended up with two World Championships - which is no easy feat against the might of Ferrari and McLaren."
In April 2004, Dino - a super-fit, keen cyclist who had never smoked in his life - was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and the prognosis was stark: he had just six months to live. Several specialists around the world were unable to treat his case. But Dino being Dino, he refused to take 'no' for an answer.
Through his friend Jarno, Dino found a doctor in Paris who was prepared to try and treat his cancer - and he began to fight, to fight harder than anybody could have believed. The 2004 Spanish Grand Prix was the first race after the diagnosis and Jarno took his Renault to the podium. "Most of all I am pleased because I can dedicate this race to a friend of mine, Dino, who I'm sure is watching me on TV," said the Italian in the emotional post-race press conference.
"He has to fight a big battle, a very strong battle. We will battle together and I will bring him my trophy." That same trophy still stands proudly, high up alongside the podium champagne bottle, in Dino's living room today.
Jarno Trulli dedicates his 3rd place in the 2004 Spanish Grand Prix to Dino Toso © LAT
Later that summer, between Dino's bouts of chemo, I remember cycling through a riverside meadow in Oxford with him when he started talking. "We've found something really good for next year in the tunnel," he explained - his blue eyes sparkling at a discovery he knew would make a real difference. "It's the way we've designed the rear suspension and I don't think anybody else will find it."
The solution proved unique to Renault, with its design philosophy of a more rearward weight bias and matching aerodynamic balance. A few months later, Alonso completed his first laps at the wheel of the R25, on a cold morning in Valencia. When he returned to the garage, he didn't just get out of the car; he leapt out and did a little jig, before resuming his game-face and giving feedback to the engineers. He knew that Dino and his colleagues had given him a car that could win the world championship.
2005 was variously described as a season that McLaren threw away, or a season where Renault played cruise-and-collect to win the world title. But within the team, it could never be seen like that. The team celebrated the drivers' and constructors' championships in real style at Blenheim Palace in early December. A plan had been hatched for a kind of "people's choice" awards until it was realised that the superior numbers of the Aero department would allow them to rig the voting.
Instead, just one man collected an award that evening - and 1,000 people rose in unison to applaud Dino as he took to the stage, a powerful symbol of the team's victory. Yet he would take no credit for himself, accept nothing remarkable in what he had conquered; it was the work of the team that mattered. It had been the same when he received the Race Tech Aerodynamicist of the Year Award a few weeks earlier.
"Nowadays, there is no one-man band work. It's all teamwork, all the more so in Formula One," Dino explained on collecting his award. "So I am honoured to accept this award in the name of my team."
In the following months, when the cancer seemed under control after intensive chemotherapy and radiotherapy, he spoke of how his illness had made him stronger, better, at his job. It had given him a paradoxical kind of balance, and brought a perspective he hadn't previously possessed. It was, in some sense, a kind of personal performance development; and from adversity, he had found the strength to transform his fight into something positive.
Self-pity never, ever featured in Dino's battle - it was an emotion he had no time for. He was constantly moving onwards, upwards, towards the next challenge; always pushing. The last text message I received from him came just after Heikki Kovalainen had won the Hungarian GP two weeks ago. It was a simple smiley face at seeing a good guy doing so well.
Fernando Alonso won the 2006 Monaco Grand Prix and two World Championships in a Dino Toso Renault © LAT
Nature, though, is savage and amoral. Dino's life was about the relationship between science and nature - how, and if, science could control nature, be it airflow or disease. He was an explorer, a seeker, and that brings with it immense respect for the unknown. He knew that when the disease returned, his battle would be even harder. And so it proved. Yet to his final days, he was smiling, joking, laughing; and when the end came, it did so peacefully on his own terms.
Four years and three months passed between Dino's diagnosis and his death. Having been given six months to live, he defied the combined wisdom of medical science to live nearly nine times longer. In that time, his F1 cars took 17 race wins, 17 pole positions, eight fastest laps and two world championships. He married, had a beautiful baby daughter who brought him untold joy in his final months, and most of all learned that life was about so much more than cars going round in circles - even when they do so quicker than all the others.
By his own admission, the last five years of his life were the very best - in spite of his disease. The word 'hero' is probably overused but Dino Toso was a great man and a true, silent hero. He met triumph and disaster head on, and treated those 'two impostors' just the same. It is the very greatest of understatements to say he will be sorely missed.
raymane a écrit:39 ans, longue maladie.
Ouais_supère a écrit:Stef, t'es chiant
Seb a écrit:C'est juste un euphémisme.
Ouais_supère a écrit:Stef, t'es chiant
Sur f1,com, Gerald Donaldson a écrit:
PHIL HILL
World Championships 1
Grand Prix Starts 49
Grand Prix Wins 3
Pole Positions 6
Nationality American
History
The first American to become World Champion had a love/hate relationship with the sport. Profoundly intelligent and deeply sensitive, he was also remarkably candid about personal demons that caused inner turmoil and made his racing life a bittersweet experience. He was always fearful and throughout his career he struggled to find a balance between the perils and pleasures of his profession. Yet driving became a way of expressing himself and racing took him on a journey to places he never expected to go.
Philip Toll Hill, Jr was born into a prominent family in Santa Monica, California, on April 20, 1927. Not particularly close to his parents, he became an introverted child with an inferiority complex and few friends. Not good at sports, he feared failure and ridicule and was consumed by feelings of inadequacy. Music became an outlet and he learned to play the piano, then became fascinated by cars. When he was 12 his favourite aunt bought him a Model T Ford, which he took apart many times to understand how it worked, and his aunt's chauffeur taught him how to drive. His burgeoning automotive skills gave him increasing self-confidence, though he still felt aimless and socially awkward.
Bored after two years of business administration studies at the University of California he dropped out to become a mechanic's helper in a Los Angeles garage, whose proprietor was an amateur racer. In 1947 Phil acquired an MG-TC two-seater, which he modified himself and began racing. In 1951, after both his parents died and left him money, he bought a 2.6-litre Ferrari and raced it with increasing success. Though he was a regular winner he was still so full of self-doubt that he always credited the car. His constant worry about the dangers of racing led to stomach ulcers so severe that he had to stop racing for ten months. With the help of heavy doses of tranquilisers he resumed racing and winning in a succession of Ferraris entered by wealthy owners, and by the mid 1950s he had become America's best sportscar racer.
In 1955 he was invited to join Ferrari's endurance racing roster at Le Mans, where the death of over 80 people in motorsport's worst disaster was deeply troubling for the sensitive Californian. He would eventually win Le Mans three times (all with Olivier Gendebien) but despite his speed in sportscars Hill's goal of Formula One racing was slow to come because Enzo Ferrari thought him temperamentally unsuited for single seaters. In 1958, after both Luigi Musso and Peter Collins were killed, Hill was promoted to Ferrari's Formula One team where he helped Mike Hawthorn to win the 1958 drivers’ title. Two years later Hill won his first Formula One championship race, the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
As a Formula One driver Hill left his inferiority complex behind, but his tendency for deep introspection continued to cause him inner turmoil. Racing had become a means of self-expression but he wasn't sure he liked what he saw. "Racing brings out the worst in me," he said. "Without it, I don't know what kind of person I might have become. But I'm not sure I like the person I am now. Racing makes me selfish, irritable, defensive. If I could get out of this sport with any ego left I would."
He also worried about getting out alive - "I became hypersensitive to the danger and wasn't sure that I wasn't going to kill myself." - and was especially nervous and apprehensive before a race. On the starting grid he paced to and fro, endlessly polishing his goggles, chain-smoking cigarettes or feverishly chewing a wad of gum.
At the start he immediately relaxed and began racing with notable composure. He was a careful driver, mechanically sympathetic and easy on his cars, in which, given his admitted phobias, he was remarkably courageous. Indeed, he drove best on the worst circuits, particularly distinguishing himself at Spa and the Nurburgring, and in the worst conditions. "I always felt secure in the rain," he said, "even as a little boy looking out the window."
Though at ease speaking publicly about his insecurities, he remained a loner in Europe. He stayed near the Ferrari factory in a hotel, where he played records of his favourite composers Beethoven and Vivaldi. He learned to speak competent Italian and became an opera buff, attending performances at La Scala in Milan. He was careful about his diet and kept fit by cycling and hiking, often on exploration trips to ancient monuments and ruined castles. In the off-season when he returned to California he busied himself restoring vintage automobiles and antique player pianos. Yet these distractions did not lay his mind at rest. "The strain of inactivity was worse than the strain of driving," he said. "I was compelled to race again."
In 1961, when the new 1.5-litre formula began, the V6 'sharknose' Ferrari 156s were the cars to beat and by the end of the season the championship had boiled down to a battle between Hill and his aristocratic German team mate Count Wolfgang von Trips. Their title showdown took place in an ill-fated Italian Grand Prix at Monza. On the second lap the von Trips Ferrari touched wheels with the Lotus of Jim Clark and cartwheeled into the crowd, killing von Trips and 14 spectators. Hill won the race, and the Championship by a single point over his dead team mate. But there was no joy for the sad victor, who was a pallbearer at von Trips' funeral. Hill: "I never in my life experienced anything so profoundly mournful."
Thereafter Hill's Formula One career went progressively downhill. After another season at Ferrari he moved to ATS, then Cooper, before retiring from single seaters in 1964. He continued racing sportscars for a while, then retired to California, where his car restoration hobby became a lucrative business and Hill happily settled into a life of quiet domesticity. In 1971 he married his long-time girlfriend Alma and began raising a new family. And the first American champion had no regrets.
"In retrospect it was worth it," Phil Hill said. "I had a very exciting life and learned an awful lot about myself and others that I might never have learned. Racing sort of forced a confrontation with reality. Lots of people spend their lives in a state that is never really destined to go anywhere."
Text - Gerald Donaldson
Cyril a écrit:Arf...
Xave a écrit::cry:
Une légende, Champion au volant d'une légende...
Ouais_supère a écrit:Parce que champion par défaut. Von Trips est resté plus populaire.
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