Although it was due to be released tomorrow (26th January) on the cover of this month’s F1 Racing magazine, printed copies of the magazine arrived on subscriber’s doormats this morning, forcing Caterham to hastily release this low-res glimpse of their new car for its online audience.
The team will post further images tomorrow, along with an interview with Mike Gascoyne on the car’s design and build process.
Since this is the first ever Caterham F1 car, the chassis has been named CT01 however this is actually the third car built since the team came into existence (as Team Lotus in 2010) and borrows heavily on the mechanical and aerodynamic progress made by last year’s 2011 T128 race car.
As expected, green and yellow remains the livery in use, whilst the CT01 will now be powered by a Renault engine. The standout feature (and this if far from being a compliment), is the new car’s ‘platypus’-style nose, which is expected to become commonplace this year due to new safety regulations concerning nose height.
The CT01 is due to make its on-track debut at the first official test session of the year at Spain’s Jerez circuit on February 7th-10th.
Caterham F1 will be updating their Facebook page tomorrow morning with all the details, plus that interview with Mike Gascoyne. Meanwhile you can read more about their 2012 car in an interview with Mark Smith, who talks about the chassis build and crash testing process.
Written By

Steve Davies
Steve is an investor, private equity advisor and former Partner at KPMG, PwC and Bain. Most importantly he's a life-long car enthusiast, mountain biker and active sports enthusiast. He designs and builds technology platforms and is the architect behind Transmission.
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