The Canadian Grand Prix weekend of the Caterham F1 team was mediocre at best, terrible at worst. Having qualified right at the back of the field on Saturday, a noticeable distance behind perennial rivals Marussia, the team ended Sunday with two retirements for Kamui Kobayashi and Marcus Ericsson.
Kobayashi ended his race at the side of the road at turn four on lap twenty-two when his suspension broke on him. The Japanese driver knows Montreal was not easy for the team, but he is determined not to give up.
“My start was ok and I managed to avoid all the debris from the Marussia crash on lap one,” said Kobayashi. “The tyre management under the safety car was pretty good, but then a couple of laps after it came in I felt a problem with the rear coming out of turn two and had to stop the car. When I got out I had a look and I could see it was a rear suspension problem, so that was that.
“We’ve had a pretty hard time in Canada but we’ll continue to fight. Our day will come, I’m pretty certain about that, but it wasn’t to be this weekend in Montreal, so we’ll have a look at everything we’ve learnt this weekend back at the factory and go to the next race in Austria ready to fight again.”
Team-mate Ericsson’s race lasted even less than Kobayashi’s, the Swede retiring in the pits on lap six with a turbo issue with his Renault-powered car. Like his Japanese team-mate Ericsson is determined to keep pushing to get results out of the Caterham.
“A disappointing end to a difficult weekend, but for me its all part of the learning curve,” said Ericsson. “As soon as the formation lap started I could feel that the Power Unit wasn’t pulling hard in any gears and that continued under the safety car.
“The team tried to fix it but there wasn’t anything we could do and as soon as the safety car came in I was told to retire and that was the end of the race. When I got the car back we found out the problem was with a pipe connected to the turbo, not the Power Unit itself, and we had to retire to prevent any damage to the engine. Obviously that’s not how we wanted to end the race but we’ll regroup and keep pushing.”
