Caterham F1 Team has restructured its senior management team with Mark Smith having departed and a new technical committee taking over. This includes John Iley, who becomes head of performance engineering, overseeing the performance aspects of the car; Jody Egginton as in charge of design and manufacturing and Gerry Hughes running trackside operations.
“After investing last year in our new factory, and over the winter in aerodynamic development capacity, the new structure gives three specialists we are lucky to have with us the opportunity to use their experience, passion and dedication to help us progress,” said team boss Cyril Abiteboul. “We are not happy with our current performance levels and John, Jody and Gerry, with my full support and that of our shareholders, staff and partners, are the right people to help take us forward.”
There have been rumours in recent days that Caterham may soon be sold.
joeblogsf1 
Gene Haas keen on emptying his bank account?
Is this a last ditch effort to change the structure of the team to increase its competitiveness or is it more due to the differences between Cyril and Mark Smith? Any ideas?
I believe Tony Fernandes had said before the season started that he expected a solid step forward in performance this year or he would have to look again at the whole operation. I also understand Carl Haas will visit Enstone soon. Perhaps he will make a trip to Leafield as well………
Carl Haas is not doing anything
I can’t understand why everyone seems to comment on Haas buying a established team, why did he bother to apply for a new liscence when he could have purchased a existing team if that was the case.If he buys a existing team we don’t get a additional team in the field.
Gene Haas is visiting Enstone next week.
No he is not.
More than anything else, they need a new nose design.
Needs to be back inside the trousers
> There have been rumours in recent days that Caterham may soon be sold.
And there are rumours (OK, made up stories on the internet) that Carlos Slim might buy Force India (why? I mean, why?) and that Gene Haas is considering buying Lotus.
Can you add anything to these? (Calling BS counts as adding something). And if Haas is looking for an established team to buy, is he still planning to close down the design team and migrate it across to the US and just leave behind a race car prep shop? Or is he reconsidering the whole plan?
As for Caterham, well, I’m sorry to kick a man when he’s down, but…Mark Smith? Oh, yeah, Mark Smith. He did the R24.
Which was flawed and failed to work as planned. Until they accidentally made it much quicker by adding stiffening struts at the back (for a completely different reason) and discovered by chance that the car’s problem was a lack of rigidity. Having failed to diagnose the car’s actual problem, and blamed the drivers for not pushing when they said they didn’t have confidence in it.
So he left Renault and went to Red Bull, where he did the RB2. Which was based on a fundamental misinterpretation of Ferrari cooling data. And was abandoned mid-season so that the team could focus on a Newey-designed car instead. In fairness, they did notice the engine overheating, so they could solve it. By hacking new holes in the bodywork…
I shouldn’t snark, but every car I know of that he’s been the top man on has been a dog, going back a decade. I know, he worked with Gary Anderson and Mike Gascoyne at Jordan and contributed to some good cars there. But that was a long time ago, and he seems to have been promoted quite a lot since. And Caterham have a lot more resource than Marussia, phoned it in last season so they’d get this year right (because they didn’t think Marussia could put a glove on them, even in their sleep), produced what is IMO a really interesting and effective -looking- car (just me, I know), and…it just really isn’t coming together. Are they really underperforming? Or did Pat Symonds just do an amazing job setting Marussia up to make bricks without straw?
Seriously, I think Caterham and Marussia have done us as fans a great service. I’m genuinely astonished that after four complete seasons, they’re so far behind the midfield, and I think it’s an incredible testament to the work of the other teams and a sign of how much depth of knowledge and competence is in every one of those longer established teams. I do understand Fernandes becoming frustrated, even if he rather overstates his team’s resources compared with their rivals.
It’s more likely a case of the other teams having far more money…..
Marussia don’t. Quite the reverse.
Joe, have you seen Haas sniffing around?
No
Interesting comments on the Sky F1 commentary that Gene Haas is visiting the Lotus team this week.
First I’ve heard of it
Whether it’s true or not, they mentioned it several times this past weekend.
Any interest from the Haas people.. The timing could be just right and far more sensible than setting up ‘over there’. But then again sense means nothing… Look at Maldonado……
Nope
Getting rid of Mark Smith?! What on earth are they thinking? Unless he did a runner…
Did you look at the car?
Heh, fair point, and given what toleman fan says up there about his design history, perhaps those long-standing rumours that he was the actual power behind Mike Gascoyne’s reputation weren’t actually true after all… seems I’ve not been paying attention like I used to…
Who is it that may be in line to buy the team? Who out there is looking? Haas maybe as a short cut in, in terms of staffing etc?
Nope.
“There have been rumours in recent days that Caterham may soon be sold.”
The F1 team only, or the whole shooting match?
F1 pnly
Joe,
Word now is that the whole Group is for sale, for £350m / $600m.
Any idea if that’s a realistic figure, and how much of that value might be represented by the F1 team? Seems an awfully full price to me, maybe John (OJ) or someone can shed more light?
Might depend in part on how long GE & Airbus are committed for. Colour me cynical, but I can’t see they’ll hang around longer than they have to after Tony F has left…
Word is wrong
Zip
Sent from my Sony Xperia™ smartphone
On NBCSN today they said that Haas was rumoured to visit Entsone next week
A Lotus PR was reported to have said they had no knowledge of this “…. but would check the visitors book at the end of the week….”
If a story is denied by the team principal and the PR man it is generally not true, if the team principal wants to have and credibility.
It does amaze me how these two teams have failed to make any progress! Shockingly the top two GP2 cars would of out qualified both the Caterhams and one of the Marussia cars in Barcelona if they were allowed to take part!!!!
In fact they were only 4 seconds slower than Lewis. this can’t be right, can it?
its pretty much spot on, what will happen as the season progresses the f1 teams will get faster and faster while the gp2 cars will stay still its pretty similar to f3000 when they first brought grooved tyres in for f1 cars, within a season they were beating slick tyre lap times. by the end of the season the gap will be wider than it is now as GP2 development is more restricted than f1. Although to be fair I don’t actually rate Gp2 that highly when I see how good the racing and quality of drivers is in World series by Renault and for a lot less money
Easy to forget just how powerful those GP2 cars are though. At around 600-620bhp, they’re hardly slow machines and have well over 150bhp over their F3000 predecessors. And that’s before one takes into account just how much more downforce these GP2 cars have now.
Anyhoo, Caterham. Unfortunate situation, but Formula One was never meant to be easy, although it is unlikely many of the sport’s recent team owners thought it would be this hard.
Is Caterham being sold to Formtech? As I remember correct Formtech is based in Leafield as well, or at least used to be. They wanted to become an F1 team under the Brabham banner with Kolles wasn’t it?
No.
Even if Haas isn’t after a complete team presumably he might be after a european base to prepare the cars etc. for the european season.
He could be enquiring about buying/renting space from some of the teams.
Hope Joe sorts you out Frank, but of what relevance, benefit, or interest is it to anyone that “he will be in Barcelona as Test Team manager for Williams”.
You know that you can click on Joe’s picture and contact him privately too?
Smith has been a dead end since starting there. And the team still lacks leadership, first Riad now Cyril. At least Gascoyne had a pulse and showed progress.
You don’t know Cyril.
>Smith has been a dead end since starting there.
Nay, nay and thrice nay.
He’s been a dead end for -much- longer.