Interview— Tino Belli
The Right to Repair with Tino Belli
IndyCar’s Director of Aeronautical Engineering and a legend behind-the-scenes of motorsport
In this episode, Andrea Hiott has a conversation with Tino Belli, a renowned race car engineer who has a storied career in the industry, which includes over 14 years at Andretti, work at March engineering, and being the director of aerodynamic development at Indy Car. The conversation touches on the challenges and triumphs Belli experienced in his career, the importance of balance and perspective in the high-stress world of racing, and his work to create some of the best cars in racing history. They also discuss Belli's innovative contributions to sustainability in racing through his design of a micro tube heat exchanger and Indy Car's use of 100% renewable ethanol fuel.
Find Tino Belli on LinkedIn
AAIA bio of Tino Belli
Andretti Motorsports
Robin Herd and March Engineering
Dan Wheldon
Microtube Heat Exchanger Mezzo
EMI: the Ecological Motoring Initiative
Transcript:
TinoBelli
Andrea Hiott: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome to forever. Motory today. We have a great conversation with The amazing race car engineer, Tino Belli. who has worked behind the scenes. Um, with some of the biggest names in racing. Uh, he was at Andretti for over 14 years. He was with March engineering for seven years. He's been the director of aerodynamic development at Indy car. For many years now, I think at least eight. Uh, and the list really goes on and on.
He's really worked with the stars in the business, and he's really helped to create some of the best cars out there. I mean, he has six Indianapolis, 500 victories. Um, six Indy car [00:01:00] championships, 105 IndyCar victories. So it was really an honor to talk to him. A Welshman of Italian descent, as he likes to say. We talk about the stress. Behind the scenes of racing how it could even be a little bit like PTSD at times, if you don't find the right balance. We talk about his early life and how his sister sort of is responsible for. Why he became an engineer, um, he mentions so many amazing people here, like Dan Wheldon, who he was really close to uh, before his crash in 2011 and. Um, Adrian Newey and of course, Robin Herd and, and so on, but we also talk about like the personal aspects of getting the best out of a racing team and the responsibility of those, like him who are designing and making the cars. Finding a way to. Balance beauty speed and safety.
Definitely not an easy task and so important. We talk about, for example, like. When [00:02:00] it's a good idea to watch the accident videos and when not to watch them. Of course, you know, just from his perspective, but it's pretty amazing to hear someone talk who's seen it all, um, at these amazing races. And we talk about, of course, like the Indianapolis 500 and why it is such an important race and such a legendary event. We also talk about something it's a little nerdy, but I really love this. Uh, Micro tube, heat exchanger. That actually Tino helped design with Mezzo technologies. He co-developed the whole thing. Back when he was with Andretti. You know, it's really like all the cars are using it now.
I think at least at Indy car. And it's very durable. Uh, which is what I'm getting to because, it has a low maintenance costs.
It's got this great thermal performance, it's durable and it's sustainable. I think some teams, uh, IndyCar teams are able to use one radiator for many, many seasons. So. That's kind of where we get to in the conversation. How racing can become more sustainable, including like the ways that we make cars.
And I find out some very interesting [00:03:00] things about the Indy car events that I didn't know about their fuel, that they've been running on biofuels for a very long time. For example. Uh, and also just the sustainability that was. It didn't come as to sustainable decision. They weren't trying to be sustainable in deciding not to create new cars every season like they do in Formula One. In terms of. Using cars, making cars, getting rid of parts Tino offers some really interesting perspectives on it. One thing he says is, that we should have the right to repair. So instead of thinking of cars as.. Thing made of parts that we just use one season or one race and throw away. Maybe there's a way to think of these as. Not something we want to throw away. Um, but I'll let you listen in and see what you think about that. It's a great conversation and I'm really happy to bring it to you. And I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. All right.
Let's go.
Hello, Tino. Thank you for being on Forever Motoring. It's so nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too, Andrea. So I often start this, [00:04:00] uh, podcast with a question about what first moved you
what's an early moment in your life when you remember being moved?
Tino Belli: Well, as you can tell from my name, my, uh, my family came from Italy, uh, but, uh I was born in South Wales. And, coming from Italy, everybody's a bit of a car fanatic. So, uh, definitely was quite an influence. Um, what really took me more into cars than anything else was, uh, as a child, my, obviously, a young teenager, my dream was actually always playing rugby for Wales. Uh, but I got a concussion at sort of about the age of 13, which kept recurring, so I was advised to stop playing rugby, uh, and then my interest in, uh, motorsports, increased at that point, uh, Happened to just coincide with, Formula One, starting to [00:05:00] play more regularly on the BBC.
Um, up to that point, they only have really covered the big races, like Monaco, the British Grand Prix. And then, uh, Bernie Eccleston came in and, started covering every race, and so you could follow the series nicely. And that was the beginning, the beginning of the end for me.
Andrea Hiott: So you remember watching it or listening to it, or what was it that kind of captivated you?
Tino Belli: Yeah, you know, my dad was, um, he liked cars, but wasn't very practical with cars. And, I was very lucky. That he used to let me, you know, I always wanted to work on things and, um, make things. And he used to let me service his cars for him, make mistakes, cost him money.
Um, but he was very, forgiving for that. He realized that you learn by, you know, doing things and making mistakes. So, I just used to tinker with [00:06:00] cars, watch the Formula One races on television. Coming from South Wales, you know, the nearest racetrack back then was Probably Thruxton or Silverstone, which was, you know, Silverstone was a good four hours away
so couldn't get to go and see many races. Um, South Wales is quite a strong rallying, um, area, you know, uh, forest roads and things like that. So, um, my earliest interest in racing was actually rallying. I used to compete in, uh, road rallies in the
Andrea Hiott: UK. Oh, so you started driving early. I knew you, you, You build your own cars and race and things too, but yeah,
Tino Belli: So, um, so I got to the end of high school, um, and my sister who is a lot more intelligent than me, she was in university studying medicine, she came home on Christmas and said, you know, have you handed in your Forms to go to university. I said, well, are you going to go to university? I didn't even [00:07:00] consider it.
And so, um, she sat down with me and, uh, she was very, my sister was very influential in my life. She, she was the one who taught me how to study. And, uh, she sat down with me and we completed all the forms and, um, First thing I said was, I don't think I'll do medicine like you, and she said, well, I don't think you'd like it because you don't like blood and all the rest of it.
So, um, so she said, but you like, you like cars. So why don't you study engineering? I said, oh, that sounds good. Let's, uh, let's do mechanical engineering. And she said, uh, well, you don't want to do mechanical engineering because it's dirty, whatever. And she basically picked aeronautical engineering for me, as soon as she said it, it just, um, It sparked a bell immediately because at that point, we're talking about, uh, the late seventies here, you know, Grand Effect was just coming, just coming to Formula One, and they were, [00:08:00] um, starting to use wind tunnels to design, moving ground wind tunnels to design race cars, and, uh, and that's what prompted me to really want to push to try and get to Imperial College because that's where the famous Lotus, uh, Grand Effect cars were designed.
Andrea Hiott: Ah, so that was one of the things that made you want to go there. That makes sense, I guess.
Tino Belli: Very much. I didn't, I really did not understand the higher education system. You know, I thought I was going to go and work with my dad in his fish and chip shop. And that was fine. I hadn't considered higher education at
Andrea Hiott: all.
Obviously, your sister saw something about you. You must have been pretty good working on the cars and, and things like that already. There must have been something that she noticed in you, or maybe even just a passion or understanding of it.
Tino Belli: Yeah, no, she, she definitely understood me, uh, more than anybody, probably even, even more than my teachers understood me, so.
Andrea Hiott: Hmm. She's, is she older than
Tino Belli: you? [00:09:00] Yeah, she's about three and a half years older than me. Okay.
Andrea Hiott: I'm also about three years older than my brother. And uh, I definitely remember watching him growing up. So I can imagine she would see you in a way no one else would.
So that was a lucky start. It's not easy to get into Imperial College London though, is it? For aeronautical engineering. So,
Tino Belli: Oh, so, yeah, , she picked it for me. I didn't really realize how good a school it was and how difficult it was. So, uh, yes, it was, it was quite a shock when I, um, my first year there, uh, was very close to failure.
Everybody else had done a lot more mathematics than me when I got there, and, um, I ended up having to work very, very hard just to get through the first year, so. They had like a 20 percent checkout rate in the first year. So you sort of got partway through the year, you know, you're away from home for the [00:10:00] first time. So you're having a good time. And then you realize, Oh my gosh, maybe I really start knuckling down.
And, uh, otherwise I'm going to be chucked out at the end of the first year. So
Andrea Hiott: did you have any really good. Teachers or professors or people that sort of inspired you or was there when you look back? Is there some moment then that that if provided some inspiration for what would become your own designs?
Tino Belli: I remember my my tutor Um, because I was really struggling, you know, so we would get these tutorials and you have to come in with your answers and, uh, one of the guys was, one of the other students in the tutorial, was just a genius and he'd answer all.
seven questions and I'd come in and say, well, I managed to answer one. And so he sort of said, well, you know, uh, some of, some of us have three amp fuses in our, in our brain. Some of us have [00:11:00] 13 amp fuses, you know, 13 amps is the regular, uh, British fuse. Three amp is a fuse where, um, Basically, it blows really quickly and you can't do the work and then he said some people have this piece of silver foil.
It's interesting because he was referring to the genius next to me. Uh, somewhat implying that maybe he was going to burn out he implied that I was a 3 amp fuse and maybe I needed to work to be a 13 amp fuse.
Andrea Hiott: I guess you understood that, huh? It made sense to you.
Tino Belli: An interesting analogy. Yeah. Yeah, it sort of, it sort of made me realize that, you know, there's a balance in life. Um, you have to work hard to get where you want to be. But make sure you don't do it at all costs, you know, there's still family and friends and having fun is important as well as just working, working, working, [00:12:00] working, you know, as you get older, you start to realize how important that is.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah, I guess it, I mean, it sounds like maybe having that skill or noticing that early on would be good for the race environment too, because, well, it seems like something you could take too seriously, but at the same time, it also seems like it's about teamwork in a way, which might require a little bit of, of that kind of, um, easing of pressure that you were just mentioning.
Tino Belli: Yeah, very high pressure environment, there's no doubt about it, and you know, my first boss in racing, Robin Hood. He always said you've got to make sure that you have fun in racing. Because if you don't have fun, it's too hard. It's too many hours. And it'll just drag you down.
It's very, you can get yourself to, uh, to the point where really you can have PTSD. Yeah, I can imagine. Stresses can get that [00:13:00] high that I'm sure that a number of Not only engineers, but mechanics, you know, they, I worked with, um, a mechanic at March who moved into the wind tunnel department, because obviously my background was aerodynamics.
I asked him, I said, well, why did you give up being a race mechanic? And he said that he was just getting too stressed about whether he remembered that, had he done this bolt up, had he assembled this part correctly? Because, back then and today, especially here at the Indianapolis 500, you know, one small error Um, it's, it's close to being a life and death decisions, you know, and, um, and yes, I can certainly create a lot of stress in your lives.
Andrea Hiott: It's incredible. I mean, I wanted to talk to you about that, I guess before we go there, we can go there, but how did you get from being at Imperial College London to [00:14:00] actually working with people like the ones you've just described are Andretti or, I mean, like, that seems like a huge dream, right?
For people who are studying, um, design and aerodynamics to then be. Actually in this environment, how did that happen?
Tino Belli: Yeah, uh, absolutely correct. You know, I went into university with a dream. I did want to get into racing. Um, while I was in university, I competed in the road rally and in the UK with my road car, um, and,
the rallying actually did have, quite an influence in me into getting into professional motor racing. And so, um, I did a first couple of years out of university. I worked on, uh, finite element analysis, which was quite new, and Imperial College was, a leading finite element analysis, um, so it wasn't aerodynamics at all.
It was, uh, structures. So, one of the, one of the [00:15:00] reasons to do, uh, um, aerodynamic, aeronautical engineering is because it is aerodynamics and fluid dynamics, but it's also lightweight structures, which are very applicable to, to racing cars. And so I worked in the nuclear power industry to start off with.
Basically, back then, all of the, uh, power plants were designed to a code, the ASME code, um, and when components couldn't satisfy the ASME code for space constraints or, uh, manufacturing defects, um, we used to analyze the, um, the problems in finite element analysis and we could calculate the stresses.
Um, much more accurately than you could do with pen and paper and the old way of doing it. And so we do the fatigue analysis on them and so, um, but I'd always wanted to get back into racing. So I was always looking for jobs and March Engineering, um, had a job for an aerodynamicist and [00:16:00] I went up there.
Robin Hood, who owned the company, interviewed me and at that time he wanted to get into rallying, not professionally as an amateur Yes. In his spare time. And so the two things just fitted together. He could get me for cheap mm-Hmm, uh, I could do the wind tunnel testing, develop the wind tunnel testing.
I was his, uh co-driver. Uh, in rallies on the weekends, and I used to help prepare his car, during the week. And, um, Robin at the time was a, a tax exile, so he spent a lot of time in Jersey. And, uh, the great thing for me was that, he allowed me to use his rally cars on the weekends he wasn't in the country. And yes, um, have new tires and, uh, you know, um, properly built engines and things like that, which of course I'd never had before.
Andrea Hiott: That must have been [00:17:00] really exciting.
Tino Belli: Yeah, it was very exciting. Unfortunately it made me understand that I wasn't as good a driver as I thought I was.
Um, and so after about three years, it dawned on me that maybe I should give up on the driving and concentrate on the engineering.
Andrea Hiott: Is it, are a lot of engineers drivers? Have you found that? I mean, it seems like it would really add something to the experience, but
Tino Belli: It really does. And a lot of them, um, some of them have, uh, competed at extremely high levels.
Uh, some of them have just competed as, you know, teenagers, go karting. But, um, I always encourage anybody who wants to get into motor racing to actually compete. Because, um, just teaches you, the race doesn't wait for anyone. If you're not ready when the race starts, tough luck. There are other ways of getting to, into [00:18:00] racing.
You know, Formula SAE is a very popular way of, um, students trying to get into racing. But it doesn't have that, immediacy, that time constraint that you get when you actually race yourself. , it's more, uh, artistic. It's not all about the fastest lap time, it's more about how you approach the problem and got to solve a problem.
Hmm. Um, but in, but in racing, you know that, that race, if you're not ready for that race, you're not gonna do very well in that race. It doesn't matter how elegant your design is to get there. It's gotta be done and manufactured and on the car in that time constraint.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah, it seems like there would be something about being in the car and that, that experience of needing to find solutions in a particular time frame that you can't really express, I guess, logically or data or math or whatever that would give you something.
Tino Belli: [00:19:00] So, so obviously we have a lot, lots and lots of data and I'm a bit out of date on what What everybody can do with data these days, which is, you know, which is massive. When you're talking to the driver and he's expressing what he's feeling in the car for sure, I think it's very good to have somewhat felt the same forces on your own body at some point.
Because then you can actually equate things, um, very closely. So, I was very close with the late Dan Weldon and, we used to Go on and on and on about, um, the experiences and the equivalencies of what they were feeling to other vehicles that they've driven, that we've driven in our lifetime.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah, from being in the world a little bit and talking to people.
It sounds like from the beginning, you also had the relationships you were having with the people you were working with. Um, we're also important and there's some kind of understanding there maybe that that also [00:20:00] helps to, you know,
Tino Belli: create this massive interact, you know, it's a very human, uh, environment to be in. Um, different people are motivated in different ways. Things happen in people's lives that you have to try and understand and empathize with, you know, when some, some people need an arm around the shoulder, some people need a finger pointed at them, and when you're trying to get the best out of people, and you have to sort of understand and empathize, you know, if you have a problem at home, If the workplace is not, uh, empathetic to that, you're not going to get the best out of the people, um, within a, within a race team.
And it's, you know, it is definitely, everybody looks at the driver all the time, but it's a, it is very much a team sport. Everybody, the [00:21:00] stops have to be spot on, the guys and the tire pressures has to have. pride and want to get everything right and You know mechanics have to be observant with with all of the technology we have they still have to be very observant as their working on the race cars and they have to feel that they can come and report things that they're seeing and maybe not make them look small or anything about it.
So you want them to, uh, report their observations because one of those observations is going to catch something which is going to put you out of a race one day.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah, I think when we, when we look at teams and we look at the history of them, there's a real. atmosphere around that that's created by that team.
I mean, you're in a way the brand becomes somehow all of those interactions, but I often think, uh, how I mean, it's very hard to be the one risking your life in the car. The drivers are incredible. We all know this, but at the [00:22:00] same time, for me, when I think of it personally, I almost think I would rather be if I'd had the skills, right I'd rather be the driver, uh, than the person who's. Responsible like for all those little tiny things that could go wrong in the car When the driver is driving it, do you know what I mean? Because there's this there's this kind of pressure or stress that maybe it's just the kind of person I am But that seems even like incredibly heavy that you're responsible for not only for someone else but also of course for the other people on the track and so on and so forth is that something that People think about, or they just don't, they can't think about, or So
Tino Belli: It's something, um, you know, the danger aspect of it, you always have to have in the back of your mind, uh, but you mustn't dwell on it too much.
So you've always got to realize that every change that you make on a car could, could be dangerous. But if you dwell on it too much, you will end up with PTSD. [00:23:00] So, it's a, it's a stressful environment, that you want to, um, I don't know, keep, keep it in a, in an envelope, you know, an example is, so now I work for the, uh, the sanctioning body. I don't work for a team anymore, but, um, when I was a technical director at Andrea the order sports, um, I would never look at anybody else's accidents. So, I'd never watch the replays, I would just shut myself off to, um, other teams accidents. Our own accidents, yes, we'd always investigate them to make sure that there wasn't something that we didn't do correctly or something that we could improve on to make sure that doesn't happen again.
All the other accidents you have to just shut your mind to and just not dwell on them. Now I'm on the sanctioned body side. Of course we investigate every. every accident down to the minutest detail that we can. [00:24:00] Um, because of course we want to make sure that there might be something that can be altered on the car or the way we operate to prevent that.
happening, uh, again, uh, or to prevent something else from happening. So, um, that was quite a new avenue to me when I, when I moved here. Like the first couple of years that I was at IndyCar, I really found it difficult. I, I didn't look at any of the accidents, but then there were a few things that happened that I felt that we could, um, we could have
Those things happening and that I needed to get involved and so, yeah, that was a, that was
quite
Andrea Hiott: a change. That's almost, that's a huge adjustment. I, I mean, I wanna get at that too, how you went from those in those two different worlds. But just first, I can imagine from my own point of view why I wouldn't want to watch the crashes because I'm such [00:25:00] a, once I've seen something, I feel like it's more.
I don't know if it's possible or something and it stays with me, but why wouldn't you, why did you, did you not want to watch the other crashes? Was it just that you don't want to know about those alternatives or it's just too much like overload. So it's better to focus, focus your
Tino Belli: parameters. Yeah. So you have to understand that
your focus is on going faster than everybody else and winning races. Um, when you're on a team, it's not necessarily your responsibility to, uh, make everything safer. In fact, it's sometimes it's not even in your control. So like an IndyCar, it isn't in your control because you don't actually design the cars.
Because you get the kit? Um, so you have to, if you dwell too much on the, um, on the accidents, you won't push the envelope. Mm-Hmm. Okay. You won't win races. I see. When you move to [00:26:00] the other side to be on the sanctioning body, you suddenly, it's not about making the car the fastest car anymore. It's about right.
Making it the safest car. Previous to me coming into IndyCar, when I was involved in race car design, um, you have both sides of it. You've got to try and make sure you make your race car as safe as you can, but predominantly you make it as fast as you can, um, and to pass the regulations. Um, so unfortunately, In most cases, a safe race car is a slower race car.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah, it's interesting this, this dynamic, right? This, I mean, I guess in a way everyone's sort of, um, checking and balancing everyone else. So that's kind of how, how that whole system works in a way. But it is fascinating aerodynamics itself. The, the relationship between wanting to [00:27:00] design, to design something that will be incredibly fast.
I mean, hard to even imagine what those speeds actually are if you haven't gone at those speeds. And then, there's that whole element of the parameters of safety, so, early on, did you study those kind of relationships, form and function and, like, how did you get all those themes together, or, or does racing just do that?
Tino Belli: Um, so, In university, you really just design function. And, and you'll notice that, uh, in racing formulas where, um, where the rules are pretty open, so let's say you've just given, like, the original, the original racing car rules were always like, you were given a width, a height, a weight, minimum weight. And you design whatever you can within those parameters. Most of those cars weren't actually very [00:28:00] pretty. Because, um, ironically, um, when you're trying to create downforce and minimum drag, or efficiency, um, quite ugly slab sided, uh, vehicles, can actually be the most, effective. And then there's been that transition now into, uh, more specifications trying to make things prettier, which has come from, from the marketing side.
Um, so let's take, uh, the IndyCar, which we did a body kit in Uh, 2018 that was actually, designed with style and function, together. So we spent a lot of time. We had, uh, some artists involved and obviously we had targets because we had to hit certain lap speeds and [00:29:00] certain performance numbers, but we could push and pull and adapt the rules.
To try and make it quite an attractive car while hitting, you know, the speedway, qualifying at 230 miles an hour. Average lap speed over four laps, which is, which is what we do here. So, um, you need to get the downforce and the drag right. Otherwise, that's not going to happen. So that was really the first car that I was involved with, which really was not just, you know, here are the regulations, make it as fast as you, as fast as you can make it.
And that's morphed over into other series now. So, um, LMTH hypercars, you know, they're, they're basically now. given windows that they can have their downforce and their drag within and then the stylists can try and put their own, look on it so that the cars have the [00:30:00] look of the, uh, manufacturer that is entering those
Andrea Hiott: cars.
Is that where that's coming from? Mostly the manufacturers wanting to have the brand style? Is that, or is it more for attracting audiences or both or?
Tino Belli: Well, you know, at the end of the day, the manufacturers are involved in racing to sell cars so if they can have their brand identity. on the car rather than just a sticker saying Honda or Chevrolet.
They can actually have some, you know, the headlamps and the tail lamps and carry their sort of like signature styling over the grille on the front. Um, yeah, they, they're more likely to get involved in, in a series. Yeah.
Andrea Hiott: More personalized.
Tino Belli: And that's why they, you know, in, in Le Mans and, sports GTP racing over here, they have the balance of performance to try and make sure all the cars go about the same speed.
Mm [00:31:00] hmm.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah. I don't know if you can do this, but I wonder if we, if you could help us really understand what are you really doing when you're trying to design a race car? I mean, if you had to take three parameters, you know, aside from safety, just talking about the speed. So it's basically The force, well, I mean, what would you say, what are you really trying to nail down, like, specifically?
Tino Belli: Yeah, most, um, most race cars are dominated by downforce, so that's pushing the car down into the track, pushing the tires into the track surface, because that's how you get grip. Uh, drag efficiency does come into it, so, um, you can't just add downforce at, Yeah. Yeah. Inefficient amounts of drag because, um, on slow tracks, you're probably okay with that.
But then on the faster tracks, you'll be too slow down the straight. So those are the two main parameters. And then [00:32:00] for, um, people who are designing the rest of the car, getting down to whatever this sanctioned body allows as a minimum weight is very, very important.
Andrea Hiott: Um, Yeah. For something like IndyCar, I mean, maybe, are there other races where you have so many different, three different kinds of tracks and, yeah, I mean, is, is it, how do you design when you know that the car can be on, in such different situations, turning left or right or the oval or street or?
Tino Belli: Yeah, so IndyCar is the, has the, uh, out of all racing, probably has the higher, biggest operating window. So obviously we run on, um, road and street tracks like Long Beach. Um, tracks in the USA, a lot of them tend to be very bumpy. We, we run on some very, very smooth tracks like, uh, Laguna Seca, Road America. Barber Motorsports Park is very, very smooth, but we have to have, um, a decent amount of suspension travel and [00:33:00] suspension compliance because we go to Detroit, race on the streets of Detroit, we're very, very bumpy. But then we also race on the ovals, so we have the short ovals which, uh, if you're given free rein on the short oval, you're just going to put as much downforce on the car.
As you can possibly pile onto it, because, uh, let's take Iowa, it's like 7 tenths of a mile, it's a very short track. And then we go to the, the, uh, piece de resistance, which is the Indianapolis 500. Right. Where, as I said, you know, you have to do In qualifying, it's a 4 lap average speed, so it's 10 miles., The, the car is trimmed out in qualifying as much as you can, because you just want to be as fast as you can.
But you have to have just enough downforce. With on brand new tires, you can just about hold the car wide open, uh, [00:34:00] on those, um, 16 corners that you, You do. So, you know, by the end of the, by the end of the qualifying run, the tires have been used up so much that if you ever put them back on the race car again, it doesn't matter what you do, the car is going to feel terrible.
And all of the molecules have been torn to shreds inside the tire. And that's how you get the fastest qualifying. The race is quite different. You know, the race, a lot of traffic, a lot of dirty air. You have to now add the right amount of downforce, but you don't want to have too much downforce because it will have drag associated with it.
So you've got to be, you've got to jockey for position for like 450 laps to try and make sure you're at the front end. Let's say the top four going into that last 50 miles, and then it's just a banzai flat out. [00:35:00] Race to the finish. Um, and if you have too much drag at that point, you won't, you won't win the race.
So, um, We, we actually have, uh, dry, um, mechanic adjustable front and rear wings at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. So on the pit stops, you can actually trim or add downforce a little bit. I think we're the only race and series in the world that allows a rear wing. to be adjusted like that by, uh, in the race by the mechanics. We don't have TRS, but, um, and honestly on the Opels we don't have push to pass either, so, um, it's, it's a very pure form of racing.
Andrea Hiott: What's it like to win When you've, when you've worked hard on the car and the car wins, what's the feeling like, is it just like onto the next one?
Is it a team feeling?
Tino Belli: You know, this is, this is, uh, of course the reason that you're in this business is to win, it is great to win. You, [00:36:00] you feel that you've achieved everything, you know, all the hard work you put into it. It's. is, is now justified. But I think, um, Ron Dennis at McLaren, um, said it once, it's harder to lose than it is to win. Like, Losing is a great disappointment. Winning is what I should, what you should do
and that sounds awful. I know it sounds awful. But that, that's been my feeling all the way through life. I feel, I like winning because I don't like the bad feeling I get when I don't
Andrea Hiott: win. I get it. Yeah, that makes sense. It's almost like an avoidance of the loss. That's the best part of the win.
Tino Belli: Like I, I, I expect to win.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah. Well, I think it goes back to the mindset thing that we were talking about. There's something about all this that you can't really, you can't [00:37:00] like decipher the code, but there's a kind of mental, emotional, physical stance that one finds, that's part
Tino Belli: of it. I think that's an engineer talking there, you know, we're talking numbers and facts and stuff like that.
I think it's very different for the driver because. their adrenaline and they get a lot of euphoria out of it. So whatever the chemicals in your body that drive that is, um, Is what they go through and I'm sure they are very, very emotional and they win. I think the mechanics, uh, feel that emotion a lot more as well because I think they have quite a, you know, they go over the wall and they do put themselves in danger in pit stops.
Yeah, yeah. Um, and so they get that euphoric high. Us engineers, we're looking in the race, we're looking at numbers all the time. So we got graphs, you know, we have the [00:38:00] telemetry spitting back numbers, lines at us, and we're looking for something that's going wrong and all the time. And uh, so at the end of it, you know, it's, it's, it's a relief, I suppose, at that point, as opposed to the Euphoria that maybe the drivers and the mechanics feel a bit more.
Yeah,
Andrea Hiott: that's interesting. Have you ever driven a car though, on one of the tracks? Have you, do you? Uh,
Tino Belli: not, not in the USA and I don't think I would ever be capable of driving an IndyCar. I hear that they're very difficult to drive.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah. I mean, I want to know what's your opinion, why is the Indy 500 THE race?
Tino Belli: It is, frankly, it is, unless you need to come and watch it, you need to come to Indianapolis.
We talked earlier about, um, the speed of the cars, uh, you go down [00:39:00] to Turn 1, inside or outside the track, and watch them go through that corner, and I've been coming here since the 80s. And I go down there every event and my jaw drops every time I go down there. It just does not look like it is possible for them to get around that corner at that speed.
It's spectacular. It's just absolutely spectacular. And then, um, you know, on television, the track looks quite wide, but when you hear it and you see cars go down the straight at 230 mile an hour, three wide, you are absolutely convinced that they can all do it. It just does not look like it is, it is possible to do. it's definitely. Uh, practice, race, qualifying, that's um, better to see in person than it is on television.
Andrea Hiott: That's one of the best answers I've heard because, yeah, I haven't heard anyone [00:40:00] say that before. Of where it feels like it's not possible but there you are witnessing it being possible. That, that feeling is a special feeling I can
Tino Belli: imagine. And it's also, it's also, uh, you don't get the feeling on television but when the race, It starts and there's 380 or 400, 000 people, and they all get up off their seat and start cheering. Um, spine tingling. It's a spine tingling sensation.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah. It's a special, just visceral experience, and it has a history too, doesn't it?
I mean, it's. From the beginning of racing, really, we can trace it.
Tino Belli: Uh, I can't remember what year, what year we're up to now, we must be at about 107. 107. Oh, yeah. Plus 500. You know, and that, it's not been going for 107 years, it's been going for longer than 107 years, because obviously, Second World War, it didn't happen.
A [00:41:00] lot of pauses in there. The race got cancelled. So, um, yes, it's been going a long, long time.
Andrea Hiott: Do you still feel that spirit is, like, still there? Does it continue? Because I think it can be easy sometimes to get down on racing. Oh, it's like all commercial now or whatever. And, or it's too hard, it's too much pressure.
And, um, but then at the same time, of course, people love it more than ever. But, um, do you think there's a continuity still?
Tino Belli: Yes, so the Indianapolis 500 has, has managed to keep, let's put it, it's managed to keep its feet on the ground. So, um, you know, let's take, uh, Formula One racing when we race here in Miami and Vegas and stuff like that.
It's priced so high, even Silverstone, priced so high now that normal people and not really going to races. You've got to [00:42:00] be, uh, massive enthusiastic or you've got to be very, very rich. Yeah. Um, Indianapolis 500, um, you go up into the stands in turn four. And they're regular people. They're regular people.
They're out having fun on a sunny afternoon. They got their coolers. Some of them are seriously into racing. Some of them are less seriously into racing. So, uh, take my wife as an example. You know, I could get her into the suites and do the hobnob inside of it. She always wants me to get her tickets up in turn four.
with regular people. She said it is just so much fun being up there with people, you know, they might be farmers from Illinois, they might be McDonald's workers in Chicago, they might be all sorts of walks of life. And most of them have been just coming You know, whole families have come and they just keep [00:43:00] coming because you don't have to take out a second mortgage to bring your family of six.
So grandparents, grandchildren, uncles, aunts, they make it a day out and they're just having a lot of fun and they're watching some great
Andrea Hiott: racing. Yeah, there's something about that, just the pure enjoyment of it. I used to, uh, a partner of mine was a, a musician, um, and you get in this little world of access, I guess, is the thing.
But the best experience is to just go out into the crowd and, and be in that. So I guess it's, yeah, yeah, just let go, you know. Um, I think it's probably similar with the, with the racing, but so, okay, you've, you're, you are, uh, just talk about access. I mean, you have the kind of access that people dream of, right?
I mean, , if we had time to follow your career and all of the famous, like, I mean, basically you've been in racing history behind the scenes of it. [00:44:00] Um, So, how many winning races were you part of at Indy? Over a hundred, right? I think there was like six Indy 500 victories with your designs. You definitely have um, real access, but we still don't know how you got there. How did you get from even Imperial Collin or working in the UK to Indy Indy car.
Tino Belli: So when I got the job at March Engineering, um, as aerodynamicist, the March Engineering at the time had the majority of the cars in the field of the Indianapolis 500.
So it was their main income, uh, vehicle. And so I joined March Engineering in probably April, May of 1984. Um, I worked for Adrian Newey, who was our, uh, chief designer back then. He's now the Red Bull chief designer. He's gone on to have the most stellar career that you could ever imagine. And it was clear at the [00:45:00] time that.
Absolutely exceptional.
Andrea Hiott: If you could map all your relationships, the people that you've met over your life, and it's basically a map of racing. But
Tino Belli: anyway. Yeah. Well, you know, it's, uh, it's at the end of the day, it's still quite a. Uh, I'm sure it's like the music industry, it's quite a closed world once you get in.
Yeah. Um, people move around and go from place to place and um, typically once you get into racing very few people leave because it's very difficult to get into. Mm hmm. So, um, so I came over to Indianapolis. My first race year was 1986. Um, I'd never race engineered a car before. Robin Hood asked me to come over, race engineer a car.
Um, I had no idea what I was doing, like, uh,
Andrea Hiott: Sometimes it's the best way to start
Tino Belli: though. Um, and, you know, and then you start to get to know people. People are [00:46:00] typically friendly within the business. You have to ask for help. You get to know all of the people on the other teams. , the following year I was, uh, seconded to one, one of the works teams over here, so that would be 87.
Uh, again, I went, I could go back to the UK, again, still working for Robin Hood. So I worked for Robin from 1984 to 19, uh, 95 and the various things, we, we went back and he got a deal to do Formula One cars. So we did Formula One from 91 through 94, and eventually I just had, um, I sort of had better contacts over here. Formula One was starting to get to be. Very, very large teams, uh, becoming more like aerospace. One of the reasons I wanted to get out of, um, let's call it mainstream engineering was it took so long [00:47:00] for anything that you were involved with to actually get manufactured and get produced and tested and brought into production.
Uh, and racing at the time was, you know, we were doing new cars every season. So. Yeah. It was a fast moving, exciting, uh, business to be in. Um, and then, uh, I came back to the U. S. in 95. I was commuting from the U. K. And it just made sense. I moved to team called Green, which was the team, the owner of that team had been the manager of the team that I worked with in 87.
And with my family, my boys were, I think, in 99, they were, uh, 8 and 11. It just was a real good time just to move. They wanted me to move to the United States, um, a good time for them to move to the United States, and we moved over and we've been here
Andrea Hiott: ever since. [00:48:00] And mostly an IndyCar. I mean, you had a few.
Tino Belli: So, yeah, obviously at March, back when we were designing cars, we did, uh, GTP, Group C, IndyCar, Formula 3000. We even did what would be considered the first stylized car, which was, with A. J. Foyt and General Motors and Oldsmobile. We did a closed circuit record car. Which was, you know, the GM stylist said we want it to look like this and you've got to make it create the downforce and the drag to be able to beat the world closed record, closed track record speed.
Um, bit of Formula One, as I said, from, uh, 91 to 94, very enjoyable period, small group. We designed the car with about eight engineers, subcontracted all the manufacturing of it. Um, worked firstly with, uh, Pond [00:49:00] Metal in Italy, and then subsequent work was with Larousse in France. Great, really nice working with French
Andrea Hiott: people.
You're with Porsche a little bit too,
Tino Belli: right? Porsche on the IndyCar in 89 and 90. Um, and then that, that was, the 90 was not a good example of probably being too ambitious with a race car. Um. And, uh, then came back and since 1990, I've been, uh, cart back then was Lola's and Raynard's. You bought your production racing cars and then it's morphed into what's more of a single spec car.
Although in IndyCar, people like to say it's spec, but there's, uh, a lot of things that teams can actually do to make their cars better. It's probably outside of Formula One. It's the next most [00:50:00] open racing formula in the world. I think.
Andrea Hiott: Oh, that's interesting. Somehow the constraints open up new freedoms, I guess, or not constraints, but
Tino Belli: the.
It's, um, it's more optimization than it is, um, fundamental design. So you're not allowed to necessarily make new, new parts, but you're allowed to. Optimize a lot of the parts that, that you can buy. So all of the parts are optimized to, you know, I think we have some of the highest efficiency gearboxes in the whole world.
Because, uh, speedway over the road, you don't want any drag from your gearbox. Um, the, uh, gearbox supplier is actually flabbergasted at some of the efficiencies the teams have
Andrea Hiott: managed to get. Yeah, it's actually like a big lab, isn't it? Is that how you came up with the heat exchanger, the micro? Was that kind of part
Tino Belli: of that?
[00:51:00] Mm-Hmm. . Well, so, um, in, when I was at Andrei, uh, in previous iterations of cars. The heat exchangers were free, so, um, they were allowed to be, do whatever you want. They had to be exactly the same size, same length, same height, but you were allowed to make your, have custom heat exchangers.
And, uh, it was interesting because Les McTaggart was the, sort of, technical director at IndyCar at the time. And he got approached by this company, Mezzo Technologies. And, uh, I think he wanted to get rid of them. He just told them to call me. And then Freddie and I spoke with the president of the company.
It's a very small company at the time. And everything he said just made sense thermodynamically. So a big part of aeronautical engineering is thermodynamics. Yeah. Um, and so I convinced Michael to spend some money [00:52:00] to build some prototypes and we, we set out a very, very tight protocol for them to Go through testing the making some subscale heat exchangers, how we wanted them tested.
And again, a very short period from I think October until May, they were in the race cars at the Indianapolis 500 the following
Andrea Hiott: year. Yeah, it was almost like it was just waiting for that, right?
Tino Belli: Very, very efficient. Slightly on the heavy side, but they, I think the company is now. Uh, the point where they can fix that, that problem and very sustainable because, um, they last forever.
So because normal heat exchangers have fins, they, the aluminum fins tend to get bent and damaged and debris can get into them. Um, these heat exchangers, can last. 10 times as [00:53:00] long as a conventional heat exchanger.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah, they're incredible. I think, yeah, one of those little gems that changed things in a way that was so seamless, you just take it for granted, I guess.
Yeah. We don't have much time left, but you were talking about sustainable. So I do actually want to ask you about There's been like the hybrid Indy kind of introduction and this, of course, everyone now talking about trying to shift towards more ecological motoring and I wonder how you've seen that develop or just if you have any thoughts about it or.
Tino Belli: So I'm, I'm a great believer in the right to repair. Um, I think we've got into this throwaway world now, um, especially with plastics, you know, we're just making things. I saw something the other day. Uh, sort of a tongue in cheek, um, Twitter out there where the guy says, uh, I go to the supermarket and I order some ham and they put it in [00:54:00] a plastic bag.
Then, you know, I go and buy pop in an aluminum tin and whatever, but I can't get a Uh, carry a plastic carrier bag to take my, my produce home. And it's true, because my wife and I, we go through it all the time. I say, hey, you know, we used to get things in paper and glass. And, um, and you just can't do it now.
We pick on little things, which, but we're not attacking the main problem. And for me, the main problem is, We have to reduce plastics, um, for sure, but, um, making things last longer, you know, I, I just, I honestly believe that it's, it's Just better for the world if we don't throw things away as regularly as we do and we try to repair things.
And so, um, I rep, I try to, at home I repair everything. [00:55:00] Like, um, like I just don't, I just don't throw anything away. I think the same thing applies to racing cars and people don't seem to realize it. So, um, I'm going to have a throw down on Formula 1 here. But, you know, they build new racing cars every year.
Um. The racing cars are made out of mostly not very environmentally good products, so carbon fiber, which is, um, resin, impregnated, magnesiums, uh, you know, just all sorts of not such nice materials. Um, and although this was not really done intentionally with an IndyCar because it was done more for economic reasons, To try and keep our car count up, um, if we don't change our car every year, you, it makes it less expensive for the teams and I think you've seen that in our car count.
We now have [00:56:00] 27 full time entries. which is great for our racing product, because people, when they go to watch a race, they want to see race cars. So the more cars you can put on track, the more they're having cars go past them. But I think one of the, the things that people miss out on is that although our monocoque or safety cell Technically you could be running one that was produced in 2000 for the 2012 racing series still They haven't degraded in any way because of the materials and the safety cell, although maybe aesthetically, people will like to see it change shape, it is just a bracket for the driver to sit in.
The most important part of it is that it is safe for the driver to be enclosed in this cockpit and, [00:57:00] um, having it such that the teams don't have to buy new ones of those every year. It just. Has to be so good for the environment because there's nothing you can do with them once they're, you can't recycle them like you can steel and aluminum.
You know, it's um, it's plastic.
So I, I'm really, um, you get a lot of fans who want the cars to look different every year, but it really doesn't, um it really doesn't improve the show. It doesn't improve sustainability. Um, the other thing that you might not realize is that our cars do run on 100 percent renewable ethanol.
Oh, I didn't
Andrea Hiott: know that. All the cars?
Tino Belli: Indy, Indy car has been running on ethanol probably since about 2004, I think previous to that they were running on methanol. So I, uh, in my career, an Indy car has never, [00:58:00] ever run on gasoline. Whoa, that's
Andrea Hiott: sort of blowing my mind for
Tino Belli: a second. So the original ethanol was, uh, corn based ethanol, which obviously people are saying that takes away from the food chain.
But now it's 100 percent, uh, renewable ethanol, so it's made from uh, through byproducts, so like the stalks and the stems and the leaves and I don't know the exact details of it, but it's, it's produced by shell and it's a hundred percent renewable.
Andrea Hiott: Wow, that's spectacular. I did not know it's a hundred percent.
I'll have to really check into that and maybe even do a show about that because that's. Sure. Yeah, really.
Tino Belli: Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a well kept secret. Yeah.
Andrea Hiott: Unfortunately. Yeah.
I really like what you were saying about this, the Not throwing things away.
It's a that's really like a mental shift I feel like that we all need to have to [00:59:00] I think it can come to from like you did as a kid working on The car and it's like having this relationship physical relationship to the parts and realizing that they mean something This can also kind of add to the cars even an IndyCar if you understand that that car has history and those parts It's like continuity.
Um, I just wanted to say that but the last question is yeah Yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead first.
Tino Belli: You know, I think, uh, certain things do get to the point where they're not economical to repair. And, you know, you have to accept that. And when we replace them, we should be trying to replace them with higher efficiency, uh, longer lasting, you know, we're in, we're in the disposable razor, disposable pen world. And I think we need to try and back down from that and go back into making things such that, you know, people can repair them and make them last longer, I guess, that's
Andrea Hiott: important. Exactly. And it's kind of exciting if you can repair something [01:00:00] yourself. It's kind of, I mean, you were saying. You, IndyCar did this for not only like the choice of ecological and sustainable motoring, but actually those things don't have to be separate, right?
Like we can make these choices that are economically good for us and actually they can be very enjoyable too and very, like we can find new ways of, of having relationships with our, with our engineered machines, you know,
Tino Belli: and sometimes it's just. easier to design things which you can throw away. It takes a lot more thought and a lot more effort to, um, design things that, you know, are easy to work on rather than they clip together once and once they're done, you have to like, Break the clips to try and get in there and you're never going to, to fix it again.
So, it's the same thing we have with a race car design. You're always trying to make something as fast as in as light as you can, [01:01:00] but you've also got to make it such that the mechanic can get in to change the components and, or to adjust the components. Very easy to make it such as almost. impossible for the guy to do that.
Uh, much harder to make it such that it's, uh, functional, so you can do it quickly. And, you know, at the end of the day, you have to think of both, because our sessions only last 30 minutes or an hour, and you need to be able to get through a number of adjustments. If you can't adjust the car, you can't learn how to make the car work So, I just think we need that, um, that mindset. Going back to, to how things can be repaired rather than just replaced.
Andrea Hiott: Mm hmm. Exactly. And it is a bit of a mind shift. Uh, if people understood that is kind of a real genius, if you can design something that can be repaired and can be understood, maybe just even shifting to understand [01:02:00] that kind of respect for design and engineering in a different way changes things a bit too. But, uh, I wonder just like to end when you think about, uh, forever motoring, cause that's the name of this podcast. I mean, what's it meant in your life? for you motoring and like, how do you see by motoring? I mean, with electric motoring with any kind of biofuel with like, well, however, we're going to move. What do you think of this forever motoring? Is it? Is it always a part of us?
Tino Belli: Um, I do. I think the motor car or something similar as a form of transport is going to be forever with us. Yes. So certainly for the next few generations, you know, it's, it is an element of freedom to. to motoring. Uh, where do I see it going? Where do, where would I like to see it go? I'd like to see governments set targets rather than, [01:03:00] um, set requirements.
So, I'd like to see them come up with a way of assessing, you know, CO2 from, you know, birth to the death. So the whole life cycle of. Uh, a car, what, what the target is for, various things, CO2, whatever. And then let engineers actually work out what is the best way. And entrepreneurs work out what is the best way to achieve those targets, as opposed to saying all cars must be electric.
Because I think at the end of the day, uh, I think we know that that is probably not going to happen. Um, is it a, is it a good target? I honestly do not know. I hear all the stories, you know, some people say the batteries are very dirty and what you do with [01:04:00] them, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I see very few, um, proper scientific slash engineering studies to.
Back up all of these claims one way or the other, you know, the pro petrol people like to throw down on the batteries, the pro battery people like to throw down on, you know, oil and gas and everything else. And I just like to see better studies done and set, set the targets and let industry work out what is the best way to get to those targets.
Because then I think you're going to get. innovative solutions, which right now, I don't think people are necessarily working towards innovative solution. They're just working towards what they've been told to do.
Andrea Hiott: That's a really good point because if you say you have to be electric or you have to go off fuel, then already you've set parameters that those are the [01:05:00] choices when if there was a bigger goal, maybe there's something we haven't imagined yet that's not electric or, you know.
Tino Belli: Absolutely. And I think, you know, the diesel thing, you know, Europe. Latched onto diesel and gave big incentives for uh, diesel um, all over Europe. And then suddenly they decided, well now diesel's banned. So who, who made that decision in the first place and whoever did, didn't put enough research into that decision.
So I think, I think the research into the decision, Decisions is important. Whoever sets the parameters needs to be part of a, you know, very intelligent group to set the parameters. Once you set the parameters, let, let industry go out and actually try and beat each other to achieve those parameters.
Andrea Hiott: We have come to think in these very strict terms that it's either electric or it's [01:06:00] traditional ICE, internal combustion engine, which there's probably millions of other options that, and the truth is any one thing, if you really look at the research, any one thing, only that thing is going to have trouble.
So
Tino Belli: the problem is, is that, you know, as we see is, um, some, sometimes the best ideas don't win, uh, because there's other things like infrastructure and cost of infrastructure. So, you know, we're going through it with electric now, which is charging stations and it's a lot more charging stations and then, and governments do have to get involved at that level.
Because industry itself won't finance it.
Andrea Hiott: We definitely need structure, scaffolding.
Tino Belli: It's complex. It's very complex. Yeah. But I'm pretty sure that, I think we like the independence of being able to go where we want to go. Um, [01:07:00] that's probably not going to go away. Unless we can create some very nice virtual reality rooms where I could be here thinking I'm on the beach in Mexico.
Yeah.
Andrea Hiott: Which we probably can. I mean, you've probably seen a lot of simulation changes in terms of the motorsport.
Tino Belli: There's, um, virtual reality is quite interesting, but it's still got a long way to go.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah, it does. And we do like to move in, in the real world too. So thank you so much for being with us and thank you for your career and all the motoring you've, provided and given. Also providing some of what we were just talking about, more of the structure and the scaffolding, which is important too. And yeah, I'm going to think about that biofuel thing.
Yeah,
Tino Belli: just do a little research and, uh, Shell, Shell make it. So it's, it's, they're a little bit, uh, I think they keep some of the secrets about what they're doing. But, it's, they say it's 100 [01:08:00] percent renewable, so I think we're one of the first racing series to get to that.
Andrea Hiott: Yeah, it's huge. I mean, that's big news. All right. Thank you so much. Awesome. Thank you. All right. Have a nice day. Thank you. You too. Be well. Bye