Caterham F1 Team has announced a restructuring of its drivers with former racer Heikki Kovalainen coming back into the team, initially to drive in Friday morning practices at Grands Prix and to give technical feedback on Caterham’s new technical package due in Barcelona. Reserve driver Alexander Rossi will move over to race in GP2 for Caterham Racing, taking the seat of Ma Qing Hua. Kovalainen raced for Caterham for three seasons, but left the team at the end of 2012 as it took on two young drivers with budgets, Charles Pic and Guido van der Garde. Kovalainen’s presence will increase More…

David Cameron has made a visit to Caterham’s Leafield Technical Centre, which is located in the British Prime Minister’s constituency of Witney. The team, which finished 10th in the constructors’ championship last season, moved its factory based from Norfolk to the Oxfordshire site in August 2012. There are also plans to move the Caterham Group’s roadcar division – Caterham Cars – to the Leafield base, which should create more jobs in the area. The Prime Minister was given a tour of the factory, visiting the workshops and race bays, meeting employees and inspecting the team’s cars. He said: “This is More…

Caterham Team Principal Cyril Abiteboul has said that his team’s focus over the winter has been on improving the infrastructure of the Leafield-based squad rather than putting significant time in to this years car, which was released today as testing began in Jerez. Abiteboul says that the CT03 is to be a work in progress throughout the year, with a B-spec machine planned for later on in the season. But the newly appointed team boss believes that they can still push themselves in to the midfield positions with a slightly updated version of last year’s car. “We cannot satisfy ourselves More…

Giedo van der Garde has been confirmed this afternoon as a race driver for the Caterham F1 Team, replacing Vitaly Petrov. Van der Garde has been in contention for the seat since the second half of last season and will join Charles Pic in winter testing and on the grid in Melbourne. The Dutchman, who has budget from the McGregor sports brand, competed in GP2 last year for Caterham and scored six podiums and two race wins. In his capacity as reserve driver for the F1 team he completed six outings in Friday morning practice at Grands Prix. It’s another More…

Mike Gascoyne has successfully completed his maiden solo transatlantic sailing trip after making it from Europe to the West Indies. The Caterham Composites CEO captained the teams ‘Caterham Challenge’ racing yacht, that is currently active in World yacht racing, and reached Grenada on Friday December 14. “Just arrived back home after 3 weeks away, so much has happened and so many experiences, strange feeling but good to be home and safe,” Gascoyne tweeted.”No traffic jams in the middle. No M25 misery. Just a journey to unlock the door to your future. Act on your dreams.” Gascoyne has been a keen More…

The Caterham Group has taken major step in its development under Tony Fernandes by deepening its ties with Renault, its Formula 1 engine supplier, in a new partnership to design and build sports cars. Caterham has bought a 50% stake in the Renault-owned Automobiles Alpine Renault, which was originally the historic French Alpine manufacturer which was a giant of the rallying world in the 1970s and whose Dieppe Plant in Normandy has been more recently used as the base for the production of Renault Sport models. The new company will be known as The Société des Automobiles Alpine Caterham when More…

Caterham performance director John Iley is hopeful the package of upgrades the team has brought to Abu Dhabi will ultimately be worth around three tenths of a second in lap time to the team. Having fallen behind Marussia in the battle for lucrative tenth place in the constructors’ championship four races ago in Singapore, Caterham has just three weekends left to try and redress the balance and, in its on-going bid to catch the back of the midfield, unveiled a series of updates on the CT01 this morning in first practice. Caterham’s deficit to Q2 has been consistently over a More…

Caterham F1 have announced this weekend that the current Deputy Managing Director of Renault Sport F1, Cyril Abiteboul, is to become the teams new CEO; taking control of all on and off track operations and reporting directly to Riad Asmat and Tony Fernandes. It is an interesting move which could also have wider implications for Caterham’s relationship with Renault on the road car side. Due to contractual commitments Abiteboul will remain in his role at Renault Sport F1 until January 2013, splitting his efforts between that and his new role at Caterham. Having been part of the Renault brand since More…