You have to admire ambition and in the case of Caterham F1’s new front wing, ambition seems to be ripe around the shop. While the team released a first barrage of upgrades in Belgium, they intend to fit a new—and perhaps magical—front wing onto the car for Japan and that will change everything.
According to team principal, Manfredi Ravetto, the new wing will see the team fighting in the mid-field according to a report from AUTOSPORT:
“We are planning to run a new front wing in Suzuka and this should allow us to catch, and to properly catch up, on the main mid-grid pack,” he said.
“We don’t see Marussia as a direct competitor any more.
“We expect to catch up on Sauber and Lotus.”
I don’t know about you but that must be some wing they’ve got there. Perhaps coupled with the upgrades from Belgium, the wing will be like a triggering device that makes the entire package completely come on song—sort of like when Mark Hamill steals his Corvette back, saves Vanessa from her life of prostitution, wins a wild car chase, and returns in triumph with the Corvette – and prostitute – to his old high school in Van Nuys.
Let’s face it, I like this kind of ambition, especially from anyone with the name “Manfredi”—love that name—and how awesome would it be to see Caterham, now 40 or 50 people leaner and two or three lawsuits heavier, start kicking Sauber and Lotus bum?
While many are signaling the teams demise and we still don’t know much about the new owners other than they are apparently of Swiss and Middle Eastern nationalities, they may be thinking long term for their F1 efforts and that’s a good thing if you’re not into 3-car teams.
Manfredi says they are well on their way of making the 2015 car and have already completed wind tunnel work but he also told AUTOSPORT that things are a bit wooly over there at Caterhama nd all the tumult isn’t helping stabilize the team. In fact, he’s apparently working miracles right now:
“In this team the surprises never end,” he said.
“This is not nice because I believe that we restructured things in a way that we could manage the team, and we could live from what we generate in terms of income.
“If we keep having 10 surprises per day then we have to keep doing 10 miracles per day. So my concern is what happens when we run out of miracles.”
That, in retrospect, doesn’t actually sound that good come to think of it. Let’s hope that new wing will become the magic bullet and fast.
Hat Tip: AUTOSPORT
