Caterham First To Launch 2012 Car

Caterham have become the first team of the 2012 grid to officially launch their car, with pictures of their new challenger emerging on the internet a day early. This occurred due to subscribers of F1 Racing Magazine receiving their copies a day early.

With the team previously known as Lotus and Team Lotus, this will be their first season known as Caterham, with the team deciding to stay with their yellow and green colors reminiscent of Lotus in the 1960s. For the second consecutive season, the team will run Renault engines, along with Red Bull, Lotus (formerly Renault) and Williams. 

The new car features an unusual nose design, which looks reminiscent of a duck or a platypus-style design. This new and unusual design is due to stricter regulations by the FIA to try and prevent nose to wheel contact which could result in a car flipping or penetrating another car in a T-boning incident.

Due to yesterdays mistake by which F1 Racing subscribers received the new F1 Racing Magazine a day early, many pictures began to emerge online, forcing Caterham to release an official picture on their Twitter feed. This picture gave very little away in the design of the car as it was a side-on shot, however the platypus-style nose was visible.

Many fans weren’t overawed by the new-style nose, whereas some admitted they had seen worse. However it is believed this design will be commonplace up and down the grid in 2012, with Caterham paying the price for releasing their design first.

Caterham have confirmed that their 2010 and 2011 drivers Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli will return this season to race for the team once again, however question marks are starting to arise above Jarno Trulli’s seat, with rumors Vitaly Petrov is in line to replace him.

With Caterham yet to score World Championship points in F1, they will be hoping that this season brings them the speed and luck that is needed to achieve this feat.