It’s that time of the week again: time for us to look at the past teams that made an exit from the sport of Formula One, having scored no points. This week, we remember Caterham.
The Caterham F1 team was originally introduced into Formula One under the name Team Lotus in 2010. There were many legal issues surrounding the use of the Lotus name and Tony Fernandes decided to change the team’s name to Caterham. He had acquired Caterham Cars in 2011 while the legal issues between Team Lotus and Group Lotus were ongoing.
The 2012 season saw the debut of the new Caterham team. The car livery remained the same and the team retained drivers Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen. However, the team decided to replace Trulli with Vitaly Petrov, leaving the Italian without a seat for the 2012 season and leading to his exit from Formula One.
Things were not going well for the Caterham team, as they suffered a double retirement in the opening race of the season due to mechanical failures. The car was off the pace of the near competitors, but the team quickly found performance in the car. The car reliability was quite good as well, with only two other retirements in the season.
Kovalainen was the more successful of the two drivers, fairly consistently out performing his teammate. The season ended without the team managing the score any points, but they were able to beat both of the other 2010 entries (Marussia and HRT) in the World Constructors’ Championship.
Petrov’s Formula One career came to an end, as the team signed Charles Pic and Giedo van der Garde to drive the car in 2013. Kovalainen’s Formula One career looked as if it were over as well, although the team retained him as a reserve driver and he later finished the season with Lotus.
The 2013 season was relatively uneventful for the team. With HRT gone from Formula One at this point, Caterham’s closest rival was Marussia. However, Caterham failed to beat them in the World Constructors’ Championship, finishing last.
With another new driver lineup for 2014 featuring Marcus Ericsson and Kamui Kobayashi, Fernandes expressed his frustrations with the poor performance, saying that he would leave if the results did not improve. The team fought with Marussia at the Monaco Grand Prix, but were unable to score their first points, giving the team record for the most races without a point.
As promised, Fernandes abandoned the team mid-way through the season, handing it over to a group of investors. With very little notice, André Lotterer was given Kobayashi’s seat at the Belgian Grand Prix, angering the Japanese driver. Lotterer failed to complete the race distance because of a mechanical issue and turned down an offer from the team to race at the following race. Kobayashi returned to the car for the Italian Grand Prix, but expressed his anger over the driver change.
The team entered administration in October, at which point Ericsson bailed on the team for a contract with Sauber. The team missed the United States Grand Prix and the race in Brazil. The team was unable to find a buyer, the team’s administrators created an online crowdfunding campaign to finish the season. They were successful and were on the grid for the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi. Kobayashi raced along with Will Stevens in the final race.
The team rushed to find a buyer but was unsuccessful. In an effort to buy some more time, the team was given permission to run the 2014 car in the 2015 season, meaning that the new owners would not have to develop a new car, which is a timely and pricey process. No buyer was found in time for the start of the season and the team’s assets were sold via auction.
Points are a difficult thing to obtain in Formula One. In this weekly series, we will look back the past teams who gave it their all, but fell short.
Points are a difficult thing to obtain in Formula One. In this weekly series, we will look back the past teams who gave it their all, but fell short.
