The Caterham F1 team unveiled its 2012 challenger to the public on Wednesday, one day ahead of the what was originally planned by the squad.
The team has revealed its car on the cover of the latest edition of F1 Racing magazine, subscribers of which received their copies today. But the team has now also released an image of the car through its official Twitter feed.
It intends to publish more images and further details of its new car on Caterham's website tomorrow.
Caterham's CT01, as the car will be called, is the team's first single seater under the new name, having raced as Lotus in its first two seasons in Formula 1.
The car, which will be powered by Renault engines, features a platypus-style nose with front suspension mounts that raise above the noseline. Features such as these may prove to be quite common this year due to the new regulations covering the nose area.
It also appears to be more aggressive aerodynamically than its predecessors, which were deliberately conservative, and features tightly-sculpted, low rear bodywork with slim and short sidepods to maximise the low drag effect in that area.
The CT01 is scheduled to make its track debut at Jerez next month when testing kicks off.
Is it just me, or does that image make the car appear longer than what we were accustomed to seeing in 2011? Maybe it's the design of the nose/monocoque. But that front end sure looks quite long to me.. " title="dunno" />
Putting that aside: That car looks like it has undergone some work in a wind tunnel. I know they aren't "McLaren style" side-pods.. but the sidepods also don't connect adjacent to the cockpit (like the RB7). They sit lower.. The coke bottle certainly looks much more compact. The engine air inlet and rearward reminds me a lot of Force India's 2011 challenger.
Interesting that we don't have any pictures of the exhaust or diffuser.. I know Scarbs thought we might see some "elevated" exhausts to help blow the rear wing. It doesn't seem Caterham have taken this approach..
Congrats to Skeletor! I hope he gets a good season up against his teammate Heikki... not the original Finn he was supposed to be partnered with but with a Finn nonetheless.
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Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:04 pm
s" title="eeks" /> ugly nose is ugly 
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