Multimatic DSSV^™

Launching into Champ Car

Unafraid to jump right in and put its DSSV technology to the test in the upper reaches of motorsport, in 2001 Multimatic entered into what was to become a long and successful partnership with Newman/Haas Racing (NHR) to supply DSSV dampers along with vehicle dynamics analysis and track support for NHR’s Champ Car effort. After campaigning on conventional Multimatic Dynamic Suspensions shim dampers in ’01, NHR transitioned to DSSV for the 2002 season.

This DSSV damping technology then helped NHR win its first title in nine years. “We won the CART championship first time out with Christiano daMatta, the most likeable young fireball in the paddock in those days,” says Multimatic’s Larry Holt about the 2002 season. “We then went on to dominate the final years of Champ Car, as DSSV took Sebastien Bourdais to four consecutive titles with Peter Gibbons at the technical helm of the NHR juggernaut.”

Following the 2010 Champ Car season, Multimatic further strengthened its position as a global leader in vehicle dynamics and motorsports engineering with the addition of Peter Gibbons as Multimatic’s Technical Director of Vehicle Dynamics. Says Holt: “Peter was such a demanding customer at NHR and later Andretti that I hired him to make our life easier, and he now runs the entire motorsport vehicle dynamics side of Multimatic.”

While Peter is recognized for spearheading DSSV’s early motorsport development during his time as NHR’s Chief Engineer, he credits Michael Guttilla — Multimatic’s Director of Suspension Systems at the time — for having personally brought ADAMS multibody dynamics analysis to motorsport. “If it weren’t for Michael, we wouldn’t have known what spools to make,” says Gibbons.

Formula for Success

In the UK, more on-track validation was ongoing. The British Formula 3 Championship has been a prime stepping-stone to Formula 1 since the 1960s. The UK championship is both the world’s oldest Formula 3 series, and its most competitive. As a proving ground for up-and-coming drivers, it seemed only logical that the series might serve in a similar role for emerging technologies like DSSV.

Having a limited number of equipment options and a world-class field of ambitious young drivers, advantages in F3 are both difficult to come by, and closely guarded. Even so, Piquet Sports enjoyed one such advantage in 2004, when Nelson Piquet Jr. won the British F3 title using Multimatic DSSV dampers.

To this point, DSSV had not really ‘gone public’, but after the 2004 Champ Car World Series and British Formula 3 titles had been won, Multimatic officially unveiled its DSSV damper technology to the world at the Autosport International Show in Birmingham, England.
Featuring independent high- and low-speed valving for control of both bump and rebound, the ‘commercial’ DSSV race damper was a true four-way unit with linear-indexed, easily accessible adjusters matched for symmetry across each axle, and an external cartridge configuration to further reduce the time and effort required for re-valving.

Exceptional damper-to-damper repeatability is one of the qualities that would make DSSV the ideal ‘spec’ damper. The damper’s first series-spec arrangements came in 2006, when MTCE delivered fifty sets for the Champ Car Atlantic season. The Formula Atlantic version of the DSSV damper was sealed, with internal adjustment limited to the range available as delivered.

With them, young engineers in the feeder series would spend less time practicing ‘old school’ shim damper rebuilding techniques, and more time working with state-of-the-art equipment. “When they graduate to Champ Cars, they will be very familiar with the damping technology which plays an even larger role at that level of competition,” commented Larry Holt at the time.

Spec Damper of the DTM

Hailed as the pinnacle of touring cars, Germany’s Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) series is characterized by front-mounted V8s, rear-wheel drive, massive downforce – and, these days, by Multimatic DSSV dampers.

Series participation began after Audi’s third consecutive title win in 2009, when factory-backed Mercedes-Benz team, HWA, first came armed with Multimatic DSSV dampers for 2010. Driver Paul DiResta became DTM champion for the first time that year, while Mercedes-Benz also took the Constructors Championship. Two years later, DTM series administration took the ‘highest common denominator’ approach and named DSSV the series’ first spec damper mandated for use on all competing entries.

An Enduring Damper

DSSV’s insensitivity to high temperatures would lend itself well to the long stints encountered in international endurance racing.

As far back as 2003, Jan Lammers’ Racing for Holland squad employed DSSV dampers in their Dome S101 LMP900 prototype, winning that year’s FIA Sports Car World Championship, and placing sixth overall at Le Mans. That same year, Multimatic’s own competition outfit won the Daytona Prototype category’s inaugural 24-hour race in Daytona with a DSSV-equipped car designed and built in-house.

Later, having engineered and developed road and race versions of the Esperante chassis for Panoz, Multimatic deployed its in-house motorsports department for a factory-supported Panoz Esperante GTLM effort in the 2006 American Le Mans Series GT2 class. The cars were fitted with DSSV dampers and supported with Multimatic’s trackside engineering services. Twice-defending Champ Car World Series champion Sebastian Bourdais teamed with Le Mans veterans Scott Maxwell and David Brabham to contest the season-opening 12 Hours of Sebring. After a dozen punishing hours, the No. 80 Esperante GTLM of Bourdais, Brabham and Maxwell crossed the stripe first-in-class for a flag-to-flag win from pole position.

Introduction of a more standardized and cost-effective 1435-series DSSV damper (14mm shaft; 35mm piston) brought spool-valve technology to an ever-increasing number of race applications. By 2007, in partnership with Honda Performance Development (HPD), Multimatic completed its first season supporting Acura’s entry into sports car racing with a DSSV 1435-equipped LMP2 chassis.

The season was highlighted with a class win and second overall placement for Andretti Green Racing at the notoriously tough Sebring 12-hour. Besides the Acura/HPD LMP1/2 prototypes, the DSSV 1435 was factory-fitted on Courage LMP and Lola DP race cars, and on Michelotto-prepared Ferrari 430 GT2s. In all, fourteen of the 2007-season’s fifty-four Le Mans entries were fitted with 1435-series DSSV dampers. Of these, two finished atop the LMP2 podium (Binnie Motorsport’s Lola-Zytek in first and Barazi-Epsilon’s Zytek in second) while the small-budget Rollcentre Racing (LMP1) team finished fourth overall. 2007 also saw Multimatic support ten Daytona Prototype teams with a two-way adjustable version of the Formula Atlantic series’ spec damper.

DSSV has since come to represent the damping technology of choice at major endurance events worldwide.

DSSV Shoes the Prancing Horse

DSSV saw initial success with Italy’s prancing horse as early as 2007, by way of the Risi Competizione F430GT’s North American GT2 title.

The Ferrari Challenge pits similarly prepared 458 Challenge EVOs against each other at premier circuits in Europe, North America and Asia. In 2010, Multimatic DSSV 1435 dampers became the series-specified damper for all Challenge categories, and were fitted to all Ferrari 458 Challenge EVO, GT2 and GT3 models during race preparation at Michelotto. Multimatic’s vehicle-dynamics and motorsport expertise was also applied by R. Ferri Motorsport in 2014 during a three-race-winning maiden season in Pirelli World Challenge GT competition with the team’s 458 GT3.

Formula Won:

DSSV in F1 — The Pinnacle of Motorsport

After Newman/Haas Racing first won the CART Champ Car title using DSSV dampers in 2002, Multimatic presented the technology — along with the company’s integrated vehicle dynamics support services — to a number of top teams in Formula 1. Response was favourable, and Multimatic then chose a single development partner, resulting in a longstanding and successful technical partnership with one of the preeminent teams in Formula 1.

With results delivered, word spread and, by 2006, DSSV dampers were in use by a quarter of the Formula 1 field. In 2007, F1 teams on DSSV earned a total of 8 victories and 17 podiums. Title success then followed in 2010 with the first of Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s four consecutive Drivers’ and Constructors’ double-championships.

Although confidentiality prevents our being specific, DSSV-equipped cars continue at the leading edge of F1.