Two-time champion Nojiri, who’s aiming to seize a 3rd crown in subsequent month’s Suzuka season finale, fears outlawing damper growth will make it more durable for any crew to beat the inherent traits of its automobile, together with the chassis.
Tremendous Components’s plan to maneuver in direction of a standard damper is about to mark a significant philosophical shift for the Japanese single-seater collection.
A want on the a part of some groups to scale back strain on budgets is believed to have been the driving power behind the controversial change.
Whereas Nojiri acknowledged that introducing widespread dampers can be Positive from this standpoint, his total opinion concerning the change was damaging when requested for his ideas on the looming change by Autosport.
The Staff Mugen driver took a brand new chassis earlier this season, forward of June’s Sugo race, in a bid to take care of automobile behaviour he was scuffling with – one thing he implied may develop into a extra widespread function of Tremendous Components with out damper freedom.
“Even when it helps the budgets, in motorsport many elements make up a racing automobile, and clearly there are some small particular person variations between them,” Nojiri stated.
“A part of establishing the automobile is to get rid of these small variations. If we go to widespread dampers, it’s exhausting to say how a lot of those variations will have an effect.
“Having extra freedom with the set-up permits you to get rid of these variations, and I believe that helps to create a extra aggressive collection. That’s what now we have in the intervening time as we’re ready to make use of many alternative sorts of dampers.
Tomoki Nojiri, TEAM MUGEN
Photograph by: Masahide Kamio
“If we go to a standard damper, it is going to develop into more durable to regulate the automobile correctly. For instance, as a result of these small particular person variations, if a sure automobile doesn’t flip [due to understeer], or has large oversteer… there are various of those sorts of traits.
“I don’t know the extent to which will probably be doable to arrange the automobile to account for these with a normal damper.”
A number of paddock sources have indicated that Ohlins is poised to develop into the model of damper that can be utilized by all groups in 2024.
This might show to be a bonus for the Toyota groups, a lot of that are understood to be already utilizing Ohlins dampers.
In addition to introducing a standard damper, Tremendous Components will even ban using third components (‘inerters’), following the pattern set by Components 1 with its 2022 guidelines.