Sergio Rinland (Part 1) – From Argentina to Astauto – Winter 2018/19 – Volume 01 issue 02

Sergio Rinland will be a name known by long time aficionados of motorsport. But, who would remember exactly with whom and what he’s been associated with throughout his lengthy career, spent for the most part in the higher echelons of the sport.  There’s sure to be a number who will recall him working with Nigel Mansell at Williams or his spell at Brabham right up until its demise or his time as chief designer at Sauber. But there’s so much more that’s probably not that apparent until you delve into your memory banks.   Here, Sergio talks openly, and with great clarity and detail of his childhood growing up in Argentina where right from a very young age, he was a self-confessed ‘car nut’, his time spent in Formula One where he worked with some of the top drivers and designers of the past forty years, right up to the present day and his involvement with the latest technologies that are entering the motorsport arena.   Having accumulated a vast knowledge over his lengthy career he now spends time passing on some of that acquired knowledge to students at the Oxford Brooks University where he teaches Simulation and Race Engineering to a masters degree standard.  Even though he recently passed the retirement age, he has no intention of pursuing that option and still has unfinished business in motorsport.  He still retains the passion and enthusiasm of someone just starting out in the sport, something that was clearly evident during our (with Darren Banks) conversation.