Caterham: A big step forward coming according to Gascoyne
Mike Gascoyne believes that the Caterham F1 team will continue to make progress in 2012, which should allow it to compete regularly in the middle of the pack, against more "prestigious" teams.
The Caterham F1 team has not yet scored a single point during its two years in F1, but Mike Gascoyne, the team’s technical director, believes that things could change in 2012 as he expects to make a bigger step forward than between 2010 and 2011 – which had allowed them to easily outpace HRT and Virgin.
For 2012, the team will have the KERS for the first time – the one used by Red Bull, which will also supply its gearbox to the Hingham team.
“I think it will be a single-seater much more in tune with the times than the last two single-seaters we have been able to design. It is probably a more significant step forward than the 2011 single-seater,” Gascoyne told Sky Sports.
In 2010 our single-seater was quite basic because we didn’t have much time and we always knew that the 2011 single-seater would be a step forward. What is exciting for me is that the 2012 car is probably an even more significant step forward in terms of design precision.
The stated goal of the Caterham team is to regularly compete in the middle of the pack in 2012 – something they did at times in 2011, and Mike Gascoyne believes this could be the case from the start of the season – particularly thanks to the contribution of KERS.
During the last race (of 2011) I think we qualified four-tenths off the Williams. We did that with a car without KERS – and that’s probably the difference KERS can make. We ended up at the back of the midfield. I think we can start at this level, maybe even a little better (in 2012).
«If you look at last year, we started 1 and a half seconds behind this pack and finished only 4 tenths behind. We want to start with these cars and achieve the same progress.»
Mike Gascoyne also mentioned the case of Jarno Trulli. The seat of the Italian driver was subject to rumors, Ricciardo was announced at one point but eventually joined Toro Rosso, and now rumors suggest Vitaly Petrov as a possible replacement. However, Gascoyne wanted to remind that the Italian driver had a contract with the Caterham F1 team, even though he did not specify if he would actually race in the Grand Prix.
«What I can say about Jarno is that he has a contract with the team for next year and he will be part of the team next year, » added Mike Gascoyne.
