Caterham F1

## File:Flag of Malaysia.svg Caterham-Renault

**Caterham F1 Team** was a British Formula One team that competed under the Caterham name, having done so for the first time in 2012, after being renamed from Lotus following a naming dispute with Proton cars. They were based at the Leafield Technical Centre in Oxfordshire, the Centre previously housing the headquarters of Arrows and Super Aguri.

## Key Personnel

* Includes duration during the Team Lotus era when Caterham had been purchased by the team.

## Background

Main article: Team Lotus (2010-11)
The team that was to become the Caterham F1 Team made its entry into Formula One during the 2010 season. The team, originally the Litespeed Formula 3 team who had originally built cars for the F3 category received the backing from experienced Formula One designer, Mike Gascoyne to apply for entry into the 2010 Formula One season, bringing the Team Lotus name back into Formula One.

The initial entry failed, however Gascoyne approached a series of Malaysian entrepreneurs to buy into the team. The team now under the control of Malaysian company, 1Malaysia Racing Team Sdn. Bhd, controlled by the companies Tune Group and Naza Group as well as receiving financial assistance from the Malaysian government and Proton, the Malaysian company that owned Lotus Cars and subsequently allowed the team to race as Lotus Racing for the 2010 season.

Tony Fernandes, the owner of the Tune Group was appointed Team Principal of Lotus Racing whilst Mike Gascoyne was made Technical Director of the team. In February 2010, the team appointed SM Nasarudin (CEO and Executive Chairman of Naza Group) and Kamarudin Meranun (co-founder with Fernandes of Tune Group ) as the team's Deputy Team Principals. Riad Asmat was made the CEO of the Formula One team.

The team would operate with Cosworth engines and Xtrac gearboxes for its first season in Formula One whilst signing race driver's and one-time race winners Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli to the team. Both driver's operating on three year deals with the team. Malaysian race driver, Fairuz Fauzy was signed on as the team's reserve.

Alongside Lotus, Virgin Racing and the Hispania Racing F1 Team also made their Formula One debut in 2010. Of the three new teams in 2010, Lotus was consistently the quickest although the team occasionally suffered from poor reliability. The team however remained a long way off the mid-field in 2010 due to their very small development time for their first car the Lotus T127 in 2010.

Mike Gascoyne had announced the team had shifted its development to the Lotus T128 in the early period of May 2010 in order to be fully prepared for the 2011 season. Furthermore in October 2010, the team announced its use of gearbox and hydraulics systems for 2011 being supplied by the Red Bull team on a multi-year agreement. The following month, the team also announced it would make its switch from the Cosworth engines to the more competitive Renault engines for 2011. The team also installed its first windtunnel in its factory in Hingham, United Kingdom.

As well as this the team announced that it would be changing its name from 'Lotus Racing' to the legendary 'Team Lotus' entrant. Proton, the owner's of the Lotus Racing name demanded the team cease using the name due to its 'persisting breaches in its license which were damaging to the Lotus name'. Lotus then opted to purchase the rights to the 'Team Lotus' name from owner David Hunt, brother of F1 world champion James Hunt to race with in the 2011 season. However Proton continued to protest, stating that the purchase of the 'Team Lotus' name had no standing legal foundation as the company that owned the Team Lotus rights, Team Lotus Ventures Limited had only formerly been owned by Hunt, therefore making the purchase illegitimate.

Despite the legal battle over the legitimacy of the 'Team Lotus' name, the team continued to operate as Team Lotus in 2011 despite a High Court battle looming over the team with Proton. In 2011, Kovalainen and Trulli remained as driver's whilst former F1 driver, Karun Chandhok became the team's test driver alongside Luiz Razia, Ricardo Teixeira and Davide Valsecchi.

In May 2011, it was announced by the high court that the team could continue operating as 'Team Lotus' however would no longer be able to continue operating as Lotus on its own as well as the team having to pay damages to Proton due to its infringements of the Lotus Racing name. The same month, Team Lotus announced its purchase of British sportscar maker Caterham Cars. The team would begin to run Caterham Logo's from the British Grand Prix onwards.The same month, former Racing Point Force India engineer, Mark Smith was appointed as joint-Technical Director alongside Mike Gascoyne. Gascoyne wishing to take a less hands on role in running the Lotus team.

Despite a longer development time for the team's 2011 chassis, the team had not made the progress of fighting with the mid-field as it had hoped for. Whilst still quicker than HRT and Virgin, the team remained much slower and less reliable than the mid-field runners. Jarno Trulli battled problems with his power steering throughout the year, leading to him being replaced for one race with Karun Chandhok at the German Grand Prix. Trulli remained in the seat for the remainer of the year however, the team once again was tenth in the Constructor's standings without having made too much progress.

August 2011 saw Riad Asmat being promoted from the team's CEO to the group CEO of all the Team Lotus ventures including the team's venture into the GP2 Series. The team had entered into Formula One's subsidary series, the GP2 as Caterham Team AirAsia at the beginning of the 2011 season. The Team Lotus test driver's serving as the Caterham GP2 race drivers.

Despite the Lotus dispute being legally closed, Group Lotus had invested in the Renault team for 2011 running as Lotus Renault GP. This had caused much confusion in the paddock over the two Lotus teams on the grid, for 2012 the Renault team announced it would become the Lotus F1 Team due to the support from the Group Lotus company. To prevent the confusion of two separate Lotus teams competing on the grid for 2012, Team Lotus announced it would rename itself to the Caterham F1 Team for the 2012 season.

## Formula One World Championship

### 2012

Heading into 2012, both Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli were retained as drivers for the season. However in the pre-season, persistent rumours began to spread that Trulli was to be replaced in the team by out of work F1 driver Vitaly Petrov. In February 2012, the team announced that Giedo van der Garde would be appointed as the team's reserve driver for the 2012 season. Despite both Kovalainen and Trulli attending the first pre-season test at Jerez with the new Caterham CT01, it was announced shortly after the test that Petrov was indeed going to race for the team in 2012 forcing Trulli to bring an end to his 14 year F1 career. Petrov appearing an attractive choice in providing sponsership with his native Russian investment into the team. As well as this it was announced Alexander Rossi would compete as the second test driver for the Caterham team.

The same day the team announced, Mike Gascoyne had changed his role to Chief Technical Officer of the Caterham Group leaving Mark Smith in charge of the general direction and technical control of the Caterham F1 Team. The pre-season testing appeared to run well for Caterham, Gascoyne labelling it as a *"perfect start"* to the season. Nonetheless the first race of the season appeared troublesome with both Kovalainen and Petrov retiring from the race. It was a frustrating start for Caterham, whilst still remaining quicker than the HRT and the newly labelled Marussia team, Caterham remained far away from the mid-field runners.

The next couple of races saw Caterham have minimal impact on the rest of the field. There was a highlight in Bahrain though, Kovalainen managed to get the team into Q2 for the very first time, however the uncompetitive race performance of the car showed as Kovalainen dropped down the field finishing the race in seventeenth behind teammate Petrov. The next race saw the two Caterham's getting in separate incidents with the Toro Rosso cars. Daniel Ricciardo ran into the back of Petrov whilst trying to lap him whilst Kovalainen lost his front wing when battling with Jean-Éric Vergne. The weekend had been marked as a positive one for Caterham however, Petrov had briefly ran in the points before dropping down the mid-field whilst Kovalainen competitively battled with the mid-field.

During July 2012, the team began to move its base of operations from its Hingham headquarters in Norfolk, United Kingdom to Leafield in Oxfordshire. The team had begun to outgrow its Hingham headquarters following its takeover of Caterham and its expanding operations.

The team continued to at times be able to compete with the mid-field, heralding the teams strongest season yet however the two Caterham cars also saw increased competition from the Marussia team with driver's Charles Pic and Timo Glock regularly challenging Petrov and Kovalainen.

The team had another high in Belgium, Kovalainen ran in the points following the first corner pile-up before dropping down the field before spinning off the circuit twice. To continue the team's misery they were handed a 10 000 euro fine following an unsafe release from the pits when Kovalainen was released into the path of Narain Karthikeyan's HRT.

In September 2012, the team managed to get a major signing as Cyril Abiteboul, the former Managing Director of Renault joined the team as CEO. The move allowed current F1 CEO Riat Asmat to focus his role as the Group CEO of Caterham Group.

The team's battle for tenth in the Constructor's championship went down to the wire in the final race in Brazil. The two Marussia's of Pic and Glock looked set to take eleventh in the race and the higher position in the championship, however Petrov did well to overtake the Marussia drivers and secure tenth in the Constructor's championship for Caterham.

At the end of the season, Tony Fernandes announced he was stepping down as Team Principal of the F1 Team, selecting new CEO Cyril Abiteboul to also take control of his duties as Team Principal. Fernandes would remain in charge of Caterham's activites as a whole remaining as the Group Chairman of Caterham Cars.

### 2014

 File:Caterham CT05.jpg
For 2014, Caterham signed the drivers Marcus Ericsson and Kamui Kobayashi.

*to be expanded*

It was announced on 1 December 2014 that Caterham had been given special dispensation to have the use of the CT05 in 2015, which the administrator would be assisted in giving the team a buyer. However, it was announced that the team will sell their assets on 11 March 2015. The FIA's updated entry list on 27 February excluded Caterham, which meant that the team demised.

## Statistics

*Correct as of 2012 Korean Grand Prix*

 **Points** | 0

## Notes

1. ↑ Beer, Matt (21 January 2014). "Caterham signs Kobayashi, Ericsson for 2014 Formula 1 season". *Autosport.com* (Haymarket Publications). http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112208. Retrieved 5 March 2015.
2. ↑ Formula 1: Caterham allowed to run 2014 car in 2015. BBC (1 December 2014). Retrieved on March 5, 2015.
3. ↑ Caterham hopes fade as team's remaining assets go up for sale. BBC Sport (5 February 2015). Retrieved on February 5, 2015.
4. ↑ The Assets of Caterham F1 Race Team. Wyles Hardy & Co (5 February 2015). Retrieved on March 5, 2015.
5. ↑ "Marussia named on Formula One entry list, Caterham gone". The Globe and Mail. 27 February 2015. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/more-sports/marussia-named-on-formula-one-entry-list-caterham-gone/article23224948. Retrieved 5 March 2015.