Dr Mario Theissen Biography

By Andrew Hooper
May 15 2002

Gerhard Berger, everyone already knows about; the ex-Grand Prix hero turned Motorsport Director of BMW. But his partner in the project, Dr Mario Theissen, doesn't have such a pit lane profile. Not yet, at least. Joint director of BMW Motorsport only since the early part of 1999, 47-year-old Theissen has nonetheless spent all his working life with the company. An engineer through to his core, his BMW groundwork lasted 14 years in various engine development programmes before being made Director of Product Concepts in 1991, two years after gaining his engineering doctorate from Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany.

From there, his move up the corporate ladder encompassed spells heading up Powertrain Predevelopment, BMW Technik and the Product and Technology Innovation Centre. So he comes to F1 steeped in the engineering excellence philosophy of BMW, knows fully all the ways of the company, shares its passion, feels clearly the responsibility of representing it in this most public of domains. In their joint responsibility for the direction of the new F1 project, Theissen looks after the technical aspects, Berger the business relations.

The doctor speaks with measured calm, and quiet charm. He considers questions carefully and answers thoughtfully, but is clearly excited about the future. "BMW stands for engineering competence, innovation, dynamic product," he says, "and the best place to prove all this is F1. This is why we are returning and why we have chosen to do it in-house. "There are great benefits to this for the company and it works in two directions. For example,

Corporate Research and Development give us big help in materials evaluation but on the other hand, material which proves successful in our programme we can give to them and assist in the road car development. Similarly, BMW has always been a pioneer in automotive electronics and the people responsible for the F1 electronics are those who did the engine management systems for the M3 and M5 road cars. "I think many people still remember our first time in F1 - when we won the championship with Brabham in 1983 - and are eagerly awaiting us to come back.

But I must stress that 2000 will be a learning year for us. We have built an engine which should allow us to deliver reliability and so give us time to develop our working relationship with the WilliamsF1 team. But there will be potential for improvements in power which we will explore during the season.