Arrows sign Rinland as their new chief designer.

The OrangeArrows team today announced that they have signed Sergio Rinland as their new Chief Designer. Rinland was responsible for this year's impressive Sauber C20, which has so far helped this Swiss team to their best season to date.

"We're very pleased to welcome Sergio to the OrangeArrows team", commented Team Principal, Tom Walkinshaw. "Next year's car, the A23 is at a critical stage so Sergio's input will help us to achieve our targets. We have a deal with Premier Performance Division and Cosworth next year which will give us the power we need to compete and now we have a strengthened design team so we are doing everything we can to continue to improve our performance."

Born in Argentina in 1952, Sergio Rinland graduated from Argentina's University of the South with a degree in mechanical engineering. He began racing in the 1970s with the Chrysler Formula 2 team in his home country before moving to England in 1980. Appointed as Chief Designer for Pro Racing Services, he was successful in many of the lower formulas and just three years on, he began designing his first F1 car at RAM Automotive.

The highly-rated Argentinian has worked with many teams in F1 from 1986 in Williams, Dallara and Brabham, where he stayed until 1992. After Brabham's closure, he established his own design team Astauto working with Fondmetal F1 Team. Seeking another new challenge, Rinland travelled to the United States for one year in 1994 where he worked on designing the Eagle-Toyota Indycar before returning to Europe to join Keke Rosberg's Opel team in the German Touring Car Championship. In 1996, he was appointed Senior Composite Engineer at Benetton where he stayed until 1999 when he became Chief Designer at Sauber and was in charge of the design of this year's impressive Sauber C20.

Sergio Rinland takes up his position in Mike Coughlan's design team at Arrows with immediate effect.