AUGUST 14, 1995

Technical upheaval at Minardi

THE technical team at Minardi is to change dramatically within the next few months with the little Italian team's technical director, 34-year-old Aldo Costa, leaving along with the team's aerodynamicist Rene Hilorst.

Costa has been in charge of design at Faenza since 1988 when he was recruited from Abarth. He had previously studied mechanical engineering at Bologna University, where he wrote a brilliant thesis on F1 suspension systems, gleaning the information from the Ferrari racing department. Costa's plans for the future are not clear but he has produced some useful chassis at Minardi and is unlikely to be left unemployed. One possible job for him is with the Forti team which has been searching for a new technical director since the departure of Sergio Rinland.

Hilorst, from Holland, has been at Minardi as its aerodynamicist since the end of 1990 but was previously employed as a professor at the Toulouse aerospace school in France. He is leaving Minardi to take up a new job at Sauber, where he will work alongside ex-Lotus windtunnel man Mike Jennings at the Swiss Aerospace tunnel in Emmen.