Caterham F1 Team starts very badly in Melbourne

While Caterham F1 Team had displayed good reliability for a client team of Renault during winter testing, the first day of testing was a real nightmare for Tony Fernandes' team since the two CT05s were unable to achieve any time due to multiple mechanical problems encountered on the two single-seaters. Kamui Kobayashi and Marcus Ericsson. This delay is all the more worrying as most of the other teams were able to string together laps to prepare for the Australian Grand Prix.

Caterham F1 Team therefore only has to rely on the last hour of testing which will precede qualifying to hope to improve its performance. “After a positive test session in Bahrain and productive preparations for Melbourne, today was not what we wanted to start our weekend.”, admitted Cedrik Staudohar, Renault Sport F1 representative at Caterham. “Kamui’s car encountered a problem with the fuel system on its very first lap in the first session. We had to remove the engine block to resolve the problem, which is no easy feat and made it impossible to run for the second session. We had an electrical problem with Marcus' car and we had to recall it at the end of its installation tour. We changed the battery as well as the MGU-K (kinetic generator motor), but the car then had a hydraulic leak during the first lap in free practice 2. This is clearly not ideal preparation, but we will analyze the small details this evening to improve everything tomorrow. »

The final free practice session for the Australian Grand Prix will take place from 4 a.m. French time and can be followed live on AUTOhebdo.fr. Discover the photos of the tests on this link.