As the pre-eminent non-Japanese race engineer in SFormula and SuperGT, Ryan Dingle (rd_raceengineer) has had a unique career. The WEC-bound Canadian reflects on nine seasons working with a plethora of top drivers in Japan:
If foreign drivers have become scarce in Super Formula and SUPER GT recently, non-Japanese engineers are an even rarer breed. Indeed, since the days of the late, great Ricardo Divila, foreign engineers working in the upper echelons of Japan’s two premier categories can almost be counted on a single hand.
And while the likes of Divila arrived in Japan later in their careers with vast experience elsewhere, Dingle pitched up as a fresh-faced graduate from Oxford Brookes University in the UK with zero racing experience to speak of, facing the daunting challenge of establishing himself on the Japanese racing ladder.
“I was thrown in with this world-class driver who had won Macau twice and I just had to make it work,” reflects Dingle. “It was pretty difficult in the beginning. But for the third race, Rosenqvist had asked [ex-Mercedes and Ferrari F1 man] Steve Clark to come and help the team, so I learned a lot from him and we went on a three-race podium streak."
On paper, the year was not as successful as 2017, as Kobayashi finished sixth overall with a pair of seconds as his best results. But, the one-car KCMG team did go into the final round at Suzuka with a very remote shot at the title, which prompted another memorable strategic gambit. “He finished 12th in the end, but the most incredible thing was that he had to save more than 10 percent of fuel every lap to make it to the end, because we boxed on lap one.
“I was just out of grad school, so I had no real experience,” Dingle reflects. “There was no real reference or role model. With the language barrier and the previous generation of engineers not relying on data as much, I had to self-teach. I made a lot of mistakes, but people were pretty understanding because they could tell I was trying my best. “When I first arrived in Japan, I was not fluent.
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