Caterham has started work on its new Leafield base in preparation for the arrival of the F1 team at the end of the month.
The race cars, now en route to Hockenheim, will return to Leafield rather than Hingham after the Hungarian GP.
Leafield was formerly the home of the Arrows and Super Aguri teams, and its location puts the team into the UK’s ‘motor sport valley,’ with greater access to technical talent.
All three teams that joined the grid in 2010 have now moved from their original locations.
“The F1 and GP2 teams will be first in place in Leafield, and Caterham Cars will be moving its HQ to Leafield in due course,” said team boss Tony Fernandes. “Caterham Composites will remain in Norfolk and CTI (Caterham Technology and Innovation) will retain its offices in Germany whilst expanding production into the Hingham site to join Caterham Composites at the base we have owned since ’09.
“The first task is to refurbish the whole site and prepare it for a long and successful future. While that work is taking place the F1 team’s race trucks have left Hingham with our 2012 race cars for the last time. The next time they are back in the UK they will go straight to Leafield and that is excellent news for everybody associated with Caterham Group.
“More than 200 of the F1 team staff are making the move to Oxfordshire over the next few weeks and when we have finished the refurbishment, in late October 2012, we will have a facility that will put us on a par with the teams we are trying to catch in F1. Importantly, it will also give us the base we need to allow Caterham Group to achieve the impossible for many years to come. This is why I am so excited about what we have ahead of us, and this is why I am now dreaming of bigger, better and more ambitious plans than ever before.”
Technical director Mark Smith underlined the handicap of the Hingham location: “One of the immediate benefits of the move is in attracting people to come and work with us. Since I joined the team in 2011 I have been aware that there have been people we wanted to bring to Norfolk who were reluctant to move their families out of ‘motorsport valley’ where all the UK based F1 teams, and their associated supply chains and partners, are based.”
Adam Cooper F1 