Nationality	Swiss Switzerland Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
Date of birth	August 2, 1949
Place of birth	Chur, Switzerland Switzerland Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

Mario Illien is an engineer specialising in motorsport engine design and comes from Chur in the Canton of Graubünden

Graubünden

Graubünden or Grisons is the largest and easternmost canton of Switzerland. The canton shares borders with the cantons of Ticino, Uri, Glarus and St. Gallen and international borders with Italy, Austria and Liechtenstein...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

. Despite living in a country in which motor racing was banned in 1955 (when Mario was six years old), he developed an interest in the sport during the 1960s while following the career of Jo Bonnier, a Swedish expatriate living in Switzerland.

Education

Prior to embarking on his motorsport engineering career, Illien trained as a technical draughtsman. He later returned to education to study for a degree in mechanical engineering at Biel

Biel/Bienne

Biel/Bienne is a city in the district of the Biel/Bienne administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.It is located on the language boundary and is throughout bilingual. Biel is the German name for the town, Bienne its French counterpart. The town is often referred to in both...

 University’s School of Engineering . He graduated in 1976 and resumed his engineering career.

Early career

Illien took his first motorsport-related job with his idol Bonnier in 1971, assisting with the preparation of an old customer McLaren chassis. When Bonnier was killed in a Lola T280 at Le Mans

24 Hours of Le Mans

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is the world's oldest sports car race in endurance racing, held annually since near the town of Le Mans, France. Commonly known as the Grand Prix of Endurance and Efficiency, race teams have to balance speed against the cars' ability to run for 24 hours without sustaining...

 in 1972, Illien was hired by Fred Stalder to modify a four-cylinder Chrysler

Chrysler

Chrysler Group LLC is a multinational automaker headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA. Chrysler was first organized as the Chrysler Corporation in 1925....

-Simca

Simca

Simca was a French automaker, founded in November 1934 by Fiat. It was directed from July 1935 to May 1963 by the Italian Henri Théodore Pigozzi...

 for use in a Le Mans prototype run by Stalder's Racing Organisation Course team. It was later used in Formula 2

Formula Two

Formula Two, abbreviated to F2, is a type of open wheel formula racing. It was replaced by Formula 3000 in 1985, but the FIA announced in 2008 that Formula Two would return for 2009 in the form of the FIA Formula Two Championship...

 in the mid-1970s, but by that time, Illien had left Stalder’s employ and enrolled at Biel.

After his graduation, his career moved away from motorsport and into military engineering. He joined Mowag (now owned by General Dynamics

General Dynamics

General Dynamics Corporation is a U.S. defense conglomerate formed by mergers and divestitures, and as of 2008 it is the fifth largest defense contractor in the world. Its headquarters are in West Falls Church , unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, in the Falls Church area.The company has...

) in Kreuzlingen

Kreuzlingen

Kreuzlingen is a municipality in the district of Kreuzlingen in the canton of Thurgau in north-eastern Switzerland. It is the seat of the district and is the second largest city of the canton, after Frauenfeld, with a population of over 18,000...

, designing diesel engines for armoured vehicles.

During his time at Mowag, Illien maintained his interest in motorsport. In 1979, at the age of 30, he gave up his job and moved to the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 to work in the design department of Cosworth

Cosworth

Cosworth is a high performance engineering company founded in London in 1958, specialising in engines and electronics for automobile racing , mainstream automotive and defence industries...

 Engineering in Northampton. He spent five years at Cosworth, contributing to the design and development of the company's racing engines, including the DFY V8. It was at Cosworth that Illien met Paul Morgan and the next stage of his career began.

Ilmor Engineering

In 1983, Illien and Morgan were working on the Cosworth DFX for the Indycar World Series

Champ Car

Champ Car was the name for a class and specification of open wheel cars used in American Championship Car Racing for many decades, primarily for use in the Indianapolis 500 auto race...

, but identified a demand for a more competitive alternative. The two men initiated their project in 1984 and contacted Roger Penske

Roger Penske

Roger S. Penske is the owner of the automobile racing team Penske Racing, the Penske Corporation, and other automotive related businesses. A winning racer in the late 1950s, Penske was named 1961's Sports Car Club of America Driver of the Year by Sports Illustrated...

 for assistance. Penske found them financial backing from General Motors

General Motors

General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...

 and the four parties each took a 25% share in a new company – Ilmor Engineering – with Morgan looking after the manufacturing and commercial side of the business and Illien in charge of the design work. By 1986, Ilmor was competing in Indycars.

In 1989, it was decided that Ilmor should enter Formula 1

Formula One

Formula One, also known as Formula 1 or F1 and referred to officially as the FIA Formula One World Championship, is the highest class of single seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile . The "formula" designation in the name refers to a set of rules with which...

, for which development of a 3.5L V10 got underway. Ilmor supplied Leyton House

Leyton House Racing

Leyton House Racing was a Formula One constructor that raced in the 1990 and 1991 seasons.It was, in essence, a rebranding of the March team which returned to F1 in 1987. Leyton House, a Japanese real estate company, had been the team's marquee sponsor since that year, and went on to buy the team...

 in 1991 and Tyrrell

Tyrrell Racing

The Tyrrell Racing Organisation was an auto racing team and Formula One constructor founded by Ken Tyrrell which started racing in 1958 and started building its own cars in 1970. The team experienced its greatest success in the early 1970s, when it won three drivers' championships and one...

 in 1992. By 1993, it had formed a partnership with Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz is a German manufacturer of automobiles, buses, coaches, and trucks. Mercedes-Benz is a division of its parent company, Daimler AG...

 to supply Sauber

Sauber

Sauber F1 Team is a Swiss Formula One team. It was founded in the 1970s by Peter Sauber, who progressed through hillclimbing and the World Sportscar Championship to reach Formula One in 1993....

 in its debut season.

Ilmor continued as Mercedes' engine builder when it joined McLaren in 1995, which eventually brought Ilmor its first Grand Prix win in 1997, followed by the kind of championship-winning success that it had achieved in the United States.

Shortly after Morgan's death in 2001, Mercedes increased its managerial involvement, purchased a 55% share and renamed the company Mercedes-Ilmor. When Mercedes' parent company, DaimlerChrysler

DaimlerChrysler

Daimler AG is a German car corporation. By unit sales, it is the thirteenth-largest car manufacturer and second-largest truck manufacturer in the world. In addition to automobiles, Daimler manufactures buses and provides financial services through its Daimler Financial Services arm...

, purchased the remaining share in 2005, Illien and Penske retained the Special Projects division, which has built Honda's

Honda

is a Japanese public multinational corporation primarily known as a manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles.Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, as well as the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by volume, producing more than...

 IRL engines since 2003. Now functioning as an independent engine builder again, Illien has taken his company into Moto GP with the X3

Ilmor X3

The X3 is an 800 cc V4 race bike built by Ilmor Engineering to compete in the 2007 MotoGP series.The X3 is the brainchild of Ilmor co-founder Mario Illien and former grand prix rider Eskil Suter of Suter Racing Technology...

project.

External links

• Ilmor Engineering