As you may recall, Renault were also part of the spygate saga in F1 last year and it was determined that Renault had indeed received McLaren’s technical information via a computer disc from a former McLaren employee that was now under Renault employment.One of the issues was a part McLaren called a “j-Damper”. When queried, Renault technical director Pat symonds said “what’s a J-Damper?” when asked about the affair.
It seems now that McLaren actually have themselves an Inerter Damper that was created at Cambridge University and contractually acquired by McLaren through a 3-year non confidentiality agreement. McLaren have been using the “j-damper”, which is just a code name for the “inerter damper” since 2005 when they entered into a confidentiality agreement with Cambridge University. Well before Renault’s mass-damper was banned by the FIA.
As the confidentiality agreement has ended, the owners of the Inerter Damper have now licensed their product with Penske Racing Shocks, a large supplier of F1 teams, and it is now believed that Force India as well as others are now using the famous J-Damper. Woo hoo! The secret revealed!
