Caterham had reason to celebrate their home Grand Prix with Kamui Kobayashi and Marcus Ericsson finishing thirteenth and fourteenth respectively. Kobayashi’s pace was solid throughout, keeping the Saubers honest until their retirement, and the Japanese driver feels the Swiss team could be within reach if Caterham can develop their car during the season..
“13th place in Malaysia puts us back in tenth in the championship and gives everyone the sort of boost we needed. There’s still a huge amount of work to do and a lot of today was new for me – that was the first time I’ve driven the car on full tanks on these tyres and we obviously have to keep putting more performance on the car so we can really fight one or two of the teams ahead. That looks like it’s a realistic target at this stage, but for now, focusing on today, finally we’ve had a good day and we should be happy about that.”
Marcus Ericsson’s fourteenth place was an impressive comeback following his qualifying crash and the Swede was also relieved to hold off Max Chilton after reliability problems struck in the closing stages.
“First I want to thank the boys in the garage for working so hard to fix my car after yesterday’s accident. I was feeling a bit low last night, but to have finished my first full Grand Prix in 14th, helping us move up into tenth place in the constructors’ championship, is a great feeling, for me and everyone in Caterham.”
“I stayed ahead of Chilton after the third stop for the primes and from there I just wanted to get the car home. It was all ok until the last couple of laps when I started losing power, and I finished just ahead of the Marussia at the line as he’d been almost able to catch me with the ERS issue, but that 14th place, by 0.1 seconds, is what puts us into tenth so I’m really glad I could hang on. That tiny margin also shows that every single detail counts at this level of competition, and the tiniest advantage can make a big difference.”
“It’s been a tough weekend, really tough for everyone, but we’ll head to Bahrain knowing we have something to build on, and something to defend. That’s a big positive and I can’t wait to get back in the car in a few days’ time and start all over again.”
