F1 2012 is here...
Last May, the team formerly known as Lotus started the nine-month process of making their 2012 car. This is the story of how 4,000 parts came together through a seemingly never-ending cycle of meticulous planning and ridiculously long days to reveal the world exclusive you are now witnessing: Caterham's first ever F1 car
Formula 1, roughly nine months ago: Sebastian Vettel was racing in Turkey, about to record his third win in the first four grands prix of 2011, prompting a fruitless attempt by the other teams to catch him and Red Bull throughout the year. But such is the relentless development of this sport that teams fight on two fronts simultaneously. There is the season in hand... and the one looming after that.
And so it was back in May that, just like most other teams, Caterham F1 started to build the CT01 - the first from within their Norfolk factory not to bear the Lotus name. For the likes of Red Bull, working on two cars at once does not pose many challenges beyond making them as fast as possible; they have over 600 people and all the state-of-the-art equipment they need. For the 250 workers at Caterham, it's a bit different.
When the teams turn up to the February tests we assume they've worked hard to put their new cars together, yet we've known little about the inner workings of making them - until now. This, quite simply, is the story of how an F1 car comes into existence, told by some of the key people at Caterham who made it happen.
MAY 2011
MARK SMITH (TECHNICAL DIRECTOR): I joined the team in mid-May 2011, which was roughly when we started to look at the 2012 car; that's when most teams start. The percentage of the team who begin working on the next car starts off very small, as in one or two people in aero and design looking at overall architecture like the engine, transmission options, fuel-cell requirements and the wheelbase. We try to make these major decisions as early as possible.
LEWIS BUTLER (CHIEF DESIGNER): Yeah, I remember starting on this car some time in late spring 2011 - although I can't quite remember because it's always a bit of a blur.
MARIANNE HINSON (HEAD OF AERODYNAMICS): The first conversation I remember having about the 2012 car was in Mike Gascoyne's office around that time, just talking about some fairly basic stuff like whether or not we'd have KERS, the gearbox supply and things like that. We discuss those big architectural items first of all so that I can define a basic windtunnel model and a wheelbase to get started with.
MARK: We were in a fortunate position as we started on the 2012 car because we knew who our engine, transmission and hydraulics suppliers were. You have to make big decisions - would we run KERS, for example, as Marianne says. So there's an initial discussion and key decisions are made in key areas. As engineers, we'd always want to run KERS and Tony Fernandes and the shareholders were keen for us to do it as well, so that was a fairly straightforward decision.
MARIANNE: We also have a review of the regulations, to ensure we all understand what they mean. This year, the big one was the nose, which was pretty clear from the beginning.
