Caterham’s 2013 car design will be more evolutionary than revolutionary. Technical Director Mark Smith believes the squad could gain an advantage as it will now be able to push with its current development deeper into the ongoing Formula 1 campaign.
“We are making the 2013 car very much a development of the current car,” Smith, formerly at Jordan, told ESPN. “There's not a fundamental shift in what we're doing and therefore we are going to develop this car a little bit further into this season than we would have done.”
One key factor is the different exhausts which debuted at Silverstone; so far the now Oxfordshire-based outfit has struggled to fine-tune the parts.
“You have to be aware of any performance losses you might be factoring into the package as well as any performance gains,” Smith continues. “I think that we're focusing on that to release more performance from the overall package. It's fairly circuit dependent as well because you're working with an exhaust system where it's quite easy to induce losses, from a power perspective, by tweaking the exhaust and at some circuits engine power is obviously at more of a premium than others.”
Caterham’s 2013 driver line-up is yet to be confirmed. While Russian Vitaly Petrov is expected to stay, it is possible that Finland’s Heikki Kovalainen – whose contract ends this season – could switch to a larger team if he receives an offer.
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