Why is Caterham bothering with F1?
Discussion
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
Caterham use the F1 for other exposure.
It was going so well with a 90 car grid of one designs for rich gentlemen racing in the Caterham Race series in Malaysia (SP/300's I believe)- until Lola went pop of course, and now they have no chassis......
???? you are soooo wrong! It was going so well with a 90 car grid of one designs for rich gentlemen racing in the Caterham Race series in Malaysia (SP/300's I believe)- until Lola went pop of course, and now they have no chassis......
rsole said:
^ this.
They bricked him up inside the Hingham facility yonks ago; you can't blame him for this year's car. the fact is that Marussia, under the talented Mr Symonds, have produced a decent car, they now have KERS and a very good driver in Mr Bianchi. His 13th place is going to be hard to beat this year. Isn't it odd that Mr Gascoyne and Mr Symonds once worked together to produce a very good car.
Mike has done some very clever things in the past, but today, building a competitive F1 car is more than a one-man game. It needs the right people doing the right stuff to make it all work. Mike is a difficult cookie to work with, and has upset his employers on many an occasion when they have interfered in his work. His technical leadership brought Benetton back to competitiveness in 2002/3, only to be suspended for upsetting Renault senior management. And then Toyota - hamstrung with Toyota red-tape even though his technical leadership brought them very close to a win. They dumped him and went down the tubes. He did the same at Spyker/Force India, turning their dog into something better, but Vijay and Mike didn't get on.
Mike hasn't run the F1 side of the business since February last year (2012). So you can't blame him for this years car.
Pat - not a designer - is a very good team man. He can pull the right people in the right direction to achieve the results. Now he's "officially" there, and not just a consultant advisor, I expect him to build his team and move forwards.
Marussia have the advantage of young Jules. One heck of an up and coming talent, where Caterham have a couple of average pay drivers. They (Caterham) should have kept Kovalainen in my opinion, but they needed the extra cash.
Moving from the back of the grid to mid-field can take a long time. Torro Rosso didn't suddenly jump forwards, it was a gradual thing. Remember they used to be Minardi - who were probably slower in terms of % pace than both Caterham and Marussia are vs front runners.
Mike has done some very clever things in the past, but today, building a competitive F1 car is more than a one-man game. It needs the right people doing the right stuff to make it all work. Mike is a difficult cookie to work with, and has upset his employers on many an occasion when they have interfered in his work. His technical leadership brought Benetton back to competitiveness in 2002/3, only to be suspended for upsetting Renault senior management. And then Toyota - hamstrung with Toyota red-tape even though his technical leadership brought them very close to a win. They dumped him and went down the tubes. He did the same at Spyker/Force India, turning their dog into something better, but Vijay and Mike didn't get on.
Mike hasn't run the F1 side of the business since February last year (2012). So you can't blame him for this years car.
Pat - not a designer - is a very good team man. He can pull the right people in the right direction to achieve the results. Now he's "officially" there, and not just a consultant advisor, I expect him to build his team and move forwards.
Marussia have the advantage of young Jules. One heck of an up and coming talent, where Caterham have a couple of average pay drivers. They (Caterham) should have kept Kovalainen in my opinion, but they needed the extra cash.
Moving from the back of the grid to mid-field can take a long time. Torro Rosso didn't suddenly jump forwards, it was a gradual thing. Remember they used to be Minardi - who were probably slower in terms of % pace than both Caterham and Marussia are vs front runners.
PW said:
Even if a tiny, tiny percentage of those people see past the literal interpretation of the team's performance on track and are interested enough and go to a dealership and take a test drive, that would represent a massive boost to a low volume company such as Caterham.
I'm willing to bet the cost of running the F1 team far exceeds the total selling price of all cars sold by Caterham in a year.Assume, average selling price £30,000. You need to sell 33 cars to receive £1 million. If they sell one car a day that's only about £10m sales. Profit will be a small fraction of that.
There is no viable financial explanation for Caterham being in F1.
From the discussion it looks like there are the same old teams that have been in F1 just under different sponsorship names.
Williams have pretty stayed with the same name and their mid placed team. Last year Williams had quite a good car that finished races. Sauber have been in the game for yonks.
I did think Marussia and Caterham were completely new teams with Caterham new playboy owners flirting with F1 because they had money to burn.
Williams have pretty stayed with the same name and their mid placed team. Last year Williams had quite a good car that finished races. Sauber have been in the game for yonks.
I did think Marussia and Caterham were completely new teams with Caterham new playboy owners flirting with F1 because they had money to burn.
Unreal1066 said:
From the discussion it looks like there are the same old teams that have been in F1 just under different sponsorship names.
Williams have pretty stayed with the same name and their mid placed team. Last year Williams had quite a good car that finished races. Sauber have been in the game for yonks.
I did think Marussia and Caterham were completely new teams with Caterham new playboy owners flirting with F1 because they had money to burn.
Eh? I'll fill you in about Caterham as you seem a trifle confused. In 2010 three new teams arrived in F1: Lotus (funded out of Malaysia by Tony Fernandes), Virgin (funded a tiny bit by Richard Branson) and Hispania Racing Team (funded by loose change from under the sofa cushions).Williams have pretty stayed with the same name and their mid placed team. Last year Williams had quite a good car that finished races. Sauber have been in the game for yonks.
I did think Marussia and Caterham were completely new teams with Caterham new playboy owners flirting with F1 because they had money to burn.
- Virgin became Marussia.
- Hispania became HRT F1 and folded at the end of last year.
- Lotus became involved in a big row with the Lotus road car company, who had formed a link with the team previously called Renault and which would eventually become 'black' Lotus (Raikkonen's team). 'Green' Lotus had to relinquish the name and so, keeping a sort of Lotus-ish link, Fernandes decided to buy the Caterham car company and rename the F1 team Caterham.
You seem to be under the impression that a little kit car company from Dartford has decided to enter F1. It's actually the other way round - an F1 team that had just lost its name in a court case bought a kit car company in order to find a semi-historic name with which to continue in F1.
Ozzie Osmond said:
PW said:
Even if a tiny, tiny percentage of those people see past the literal interpretation of the team's performance on track and are interested enough and go to a dealership and take a test drive, that would represent a massive boost to a low volume company such as Caterham.
I'm willing to bet the cost of running the F1 team far exceeds the total selling price of all cars sold by Caterham in a year.Assume, average selling price £30,000. You need to sell 33 cars to receive £1 million. If they sell one car a day that's only about £10m sales. Profit will be a small fraction of that.
There is no viable financial explanation for Caterham being in F1.
So around 340 cars with an average of £2-3k profit after build and overheads - so about £650-900k profit a year - on a good year which is I think is about what I heard
Caterham F1 costs around £30 million a year
Caterham Cars and CaterhamF1 are totally unconnected apart that they are in the same "group" of companies.
A bit of history
I was the first person to mention to the then Lotus F1 that Caterham Cars even existed and what their relation was to LotusF1 and the Lotus 7 . Honest to god - I had drinks with Tony F just after he announced the new team and explained the connection and then I had meetings with their marketing people and it was discussed back then. And also said the should use the black and gold livery but they didn't listen to me about that either
Of course I can't take credit for it but Tony F / Lotus F1 had no idea what a Caterham or even a Lotus 7 was back then. After the Malaysian Government told him to stop his legal case against Proton he had to come up with an alternative option.
It was at that time Ansar Ali called him up and introduced himself and asked him - would you like to buy an iconic British Sportscar, we'll do you a great deal.
The initial idea was that they would wade in and start selling 1000's of cars worldwide.
A few issues with that. They don't have a production line or supply chain to do it. And there probably isn't a demand for that number anyway.
Tony's a proper wheeler dealer - so next idea was to do something with his F1 engine supplier. Hence the Renault/Caterham project (that will never see the light of day).
He's really not interested in F1 anymore and he's certainly not interested in Caterham Cars. Caterham Cars has lost it's best people - it's a rudderless ship (has been for a while) and it's being run by accountants.
I've always been a huge fan of Caterham Cars. I've had several and I know the Nearns very well. It's just a real shame there's no one driving even operation anymore.
Ahonen said:
an F1 team that had just lost its name in a court case bought a kit car company in order to find a semi-historic name with which to continue in F1.
That's right. I think Fernandes believed having the old "Lotus 7" (which became the Caterham 7 when Lotus sold the rights to build the car, but kept the Lotus name) would somehow give him leverage in the legal dispute. It turned out he was wrong and got a firm smack on the nose.IMO Fernandes will footle about with Caterham F1 and Caterham Cars for a few years and then lose interest. At which point both are likely have about as much life in them as TVR.
Buying Caterham Cars had nothing to do with the legal dispute with Proton.
I'm sure this is public knowledge but Tony F's "Lotus Racing F1 team" actually had won the case but it was the Malaysian government that put pressure on him to give up the rights to Proton. It was all settled in the end out of court. All Tony F's legal fees (and you're talking 10's millions) were paid by Proton apparently.
So no Caterham Car purchase nothing to do with the legal case - just with him trying to find another angle
I'm sure this is public knowledge but Tony F's "Lotus Racing F1 team" actually had won the case but it was the Malaysian government that put pressure on him to give up the rights to Proton. It was all settled in the end out of court. All Tony F's legal fees (and you're talking 10's millions) were paid by Proton apparently.
So no Caterham Car purchase nothing to do with the legal case - just with him trying to find another angle
woof said:
Caterham Cars sell around 400 new models a year. 60 odd are Academy cars at £18k (?) including the racing that goes with it. They make very little on that.
So around 340 cars with an average of £2-3k profit after build and overheads - so about £650-900k profit a year - on a good year which is I think is about what I heard
Caterham F1 costs around £30 million a year
Caterham Cars and CaterhamF1 are totally unconnected apart that they are in the same "group" of companies.
A bit of history
I was the first person to mention to the then Lotus F1 that Caterham Cars even existed and what their relation was to LotusF1 and the Lotus 7 . Honest to god - I had drinks with Tony F just after he announced the new team and explained the connection and then I had meetings with their marketing people and it was discussed back then. And also said the should use the black and gold livery but they didn't listen to me about that either
Of course I can't take credit for it but Tony F / Lotus F1 had no idea what a Caterham or even a Lotus 7 was back then. After the Malaysian Government told him to stop his legal case against Proton he had to come up with an alternative option.
It was at that time Ansar Ali called him up and introduced himself and asked him - would you like to buy an iconic British Sportscar, we'll do you a great deal.
The initial idea was that they would wade in and start selling 1000's of cars worldwide.
A few issues with that. They don't have a production line or supply chain to do it. And there probably isn't a demand for that number anyway.
Tony's a proper wheeler dealer - so next idea was to do something with his F1 engine supplier. Hence the Renault/Caterham project (that will never see the light of day).
He's really not interested in F1 anymore and he's certainly not interested in Caterham Cars. Caterham Cars has lost it's best people - it's a rudderless ship (has been for a while) and it's being run by accountants.
I've always been a huge fan of Caterham Cars. I've had several and I know the Nearns very well. It's just a real shame there's no one driving even operation anymore.
Right again. But there will be some fruits from the Alpine alliance and without that CC will not have a car that will be compliant with EU regs. So around 340 cars with an average of £2-3k profit after build and overheads - so about £650-900k profit a year - on a good year which is I think is about what I heard
Caterham F1 costs around £30 million a year
Caterham Cars and CaterhamF1 are totally unconnected apart that they are in the same "group" of companies.
A bit of history
I was the first person to mention to the then Lotus F1 that Caterham Cars even existed and what their relation was to LotusF1 and the Lotus 7 . Honest to god - I had drinks with Tony F just after he announced the new team and explained the connection and then I had meetings with their marketing people and it was discussed back then. And also said the should use the black and gold livery but they didn't listen to me about that either
Of course I can't take credit for it but Tony F / Lotus F1 had no idea what a Caterham or even a Lotus 7 was back then. After the Malaysian Government told him to stop his legal case against Proton he had to come up with an alternative option.
It was at that time Ansar Ali called him up and introduced himself and asked him - would you like to buy an iconic British Sportscar, we'll do you a great deal.
The initial idea was that they would wade in and start selling 1000's of cars worldwide.
A few issues with that. They don't have a production line or supply chain to do it. And there probably isn't a demand for that number anyway.
Tony's a proper wheeler dealer - so next idea was to do something with his F1 engine supplier. Hence the Renault/Caterham project (that will never see the light of day).
He's really not interested in F1 anymore and he's certainly not interested in Caterham Cars. Caterham Cars has lost it's best people - it's a rudderless ship (has been for a while) and it's being run by accountants.
I've always been a huge fan of Caterham Cars. I've had several and I know the Nearns very well. It's just a real shame there's no one driving even operation anymore.
Paddy_N_Murphy said:
Caterham use the F1 for other exposure.
It was going so well with a 90 car grid of one designs for rich gentlemen racing in the Caterham Race series in Malaysia (SP/300's I believe)- until Lola went pop of course, and now they have no chassis......
Sadly not. It was going so well with a 90 car grid of one designs for rich gentlemen racing in the Caterham Race series in Malaysia (SP/300's I believe)- until Lola went pop of course, and now they have no chassis......
The SP300 was actually an old Lola design that had been knocking around for a few years that they couldn't get off the ground (someone will remember what is was called)
After Caterham got involved (basically by putting in the duratec engine) it only got worse. I don't think it completed a single test without breaking down. It's now been unofficially ditched. You can't buy one put it that way. But again i don't understand where the market place was for it - if you want a "prototype" style club racer, then you buy a Radical ?
Same deal with the Caterham Karting Academy - absolute nonsense, waste of time.
Caterham was a great little company because it had great passionate people running it and working for them.
On a plus side - Caterham Cars Club racing is still going very well. The Academy is still a great first step on the ladder and plenty of other Caterham formulas to graduate up to. It's still one of the most fun cars to race on track
First source I found, happens to be talking about the arrangements for the US cars.
Lola Press Release said:
Principal design and manufacturing of the car is done by Caterham with engineering input from Lola.
http://www.lolacars.com/newsstory.asp?NewsId=376
Wish I could find the original Lola car the SP 300 is
Lola did so many prototypes that I can't remember which is which.
Basically they had built the SP300 under another name and had tried to launch it as a one make series - which didn't get off the ground. Ansar was looking for new areas to expand in (not that he had a clue what he was doing) and saw this mothballed Lola and thought - hey I know let's stick a Caterham badge on it and put a Ford engine in it.
When it actually went - it was a great little car but it's dead now. Caterham even sold their special SP300 truck they had to transport it to the many many tests it had.
I'm going to stop now - I'm sounding too bitter and twisted
Lola did so many prototypes that I can't remember which is which.
Basically they had built the SP300 under another name and had tried to launch it as a one make series - which didn't get off the ground. Ansar was looking for new areas to expand in (not that he had a clue what he was doing) and saw this mothballed Lola and thought - hey I know let's stick a Caterham badge on it and put a Ford engine in it.
When it actually went - it was a great little car but it's dead now. Caterham even sold their special SP300 truck they had to transport it to the many many tests it had.
I'm going to stop now - I'm sounding too bitter and twisted
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