People

Willem Toet

Brought up in Australia, Toet worked for the Ford Motor Company after putting himself through university. In 1977 he quit Ford to work fulltime in racing, helping to prepare cars for touring car racing, the local Formula 2 and in Formula Ford. He soon began to modify parts and design replacements and in 1982 decided to move to Britain to work for Ray Mallock's sportscar team. He worked on suspension design and developed lap time simulation software.

In 1985 he joined what was then the Toleman Formula 1 team (later Benetton) and was responsible for vehicle dynamics and windtunnel work. In 1991 he was one of the Benetton engineers who left to join Reynard to design the original Reynard F1 car. When that project failed Toet went back to Benetton but was poached by Ferrari at the end of 1994, following Michael Schumacher's World Championship success. He worked at Ferrari for five years as head of aerodynamics but returned to Britain in 1999 to be a senior aerodynamicist at British American Racing. He stayed at the team until the end of 2005 when he moved to join the new BMW Sauber operation.