Caterham CT05 appears: First pictures

2014 F1 cars

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The Caterham CT05 has appeared for the first time at the Jerez circuit in Spain ahead of the start of testing.

The team previously known as Lotus, which rebranded as Caterham in 2012, is going into its sixth season. Kamui Kobayashi has returned to F1 after a year out to share the car with newcomer Marcus Ericsson.

Caterham will continue to use Renault engines in the first season of the new V6 hybrid turbo power units.

They have revealed an unusual solution to F1’s new nose regulations. While many teams have long extensions protruding from the nose in order to comply with revised chassis rules, Caterham have used a similar extension to mount the front wing.

They fell to last place in the constructors’ championship in 2013, having failed to score a point as in all their previous seasons. Their closest competition is likely to be fellow 2010 newcomers Marussia, though they stand to benefit from a switch to Ferrari power this year.

Caterham CT05 pictures

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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115 comments on “Caterham CT05 appears: First pictures”

  1. I’m sorry , is this a joke ? Oh My God !

    1. Looks like the monster from the movie Alien, you know when it opens its mouth and something is coming out…

      Worst design until now. I really prefer the Mercedes and Ferrari way, instead of all those sausages hanging out!

    2. Besides the aesthetics this cars how bad the designing and composites departments are in caterham, Fernandes may be done with not scoring but that’s their spot in short the car looks boxy plaid it hasn’t got any type of vanity panel its has bear as Scarbs sketch of a bear nose would look like. I haven’t seen the Marussia but this year caterham hasnt got kers to overtake them do better pray that if their performances dont change they at least have a better powertrain. I don’t know who will win in 2014 but caterham is last for me.

      1. The people in charge need to wake up… this has gone too far.

    3. I’m certainly offended.

    4. Oh my if only AyRton was alive to see this

  2. WHAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTT?????????

    1. Well, now that I am psychologically able to see that thing, it looks horrendous. But technically perhaps it’s not that bad, in terms of getting as much air underneath the car as possible.

      1. Everyone always talks about forcing air under the car, and I can see how this front end could do just that. Just looking at it, wouldn’t having that big square in the open cause some drag issues ? Its times like this where I wish I was an aerodynamics expert. I shouldn’t really be wiping out a cars chances at this stage, but overall it does look very blocky, and the side pods look huge..

        1. They mentioned being more conservative with packaging towards the back to be able to be one of the last few standing if everyone more ambitious there drops out during the first couple of races this season @f190

          1. Thanks @bascb

            That makes a lot of sense actually, I hope it pays off for them.

  3. Meh.

  4. The car is not pretty at all. Strange design.

    1. If on top of its awful look it performs poorly, then Fernandes has another reason to leave the sport…

  5. Reminds me of the Jordan 191… if it had been sponsored by Ann Summers

  6. Yuck.

  7. Wow. This has to be the worst looking of the lot.

    Mind you, some of the design choices may have good (and potentially successful) purpose but WOW!

    Well at least so far the cars are sounding good IMHO.

  8. Would a potential sponser want their name on that?

    1. Right now I’d much rather have my name on a wonky looking Caterham that runs, than the Maclaren or Lotus that are not even running currently.

    2. Durex probably..

    3. Intimategadgets.com maybe?

    4. The Fleshlight might want it on there…

  9. Ugliest car of 2014? I think we have a winner…

    1. Yep. My first thought was “FUGLY!”

      My second thought brought me back to the fact that it doesn’t matter what it looks like, it matters how it performs. If it runs well on track, it is a beautiful car :)

  10. marijn willems
    28th January 2014, 14:21

    My god, this looks like some old F3000 car, yes F3000, not even GP2 (because they look beter)! The monocoque area looks so bulky and un-aerodynamically :-/ *bleh*

  11. Gunna say it…….

    I like it! Totally differently. Nowhere near as ghastly as the other phallic noses. This just looks like something out of Carmageddon!

    I also applaud them for going for something a little radical. I hope it works out for them.

    1. Wierdly, I agree, I think it should be called “The Turtle”.

      There is somthing which I actually quite like about it. It looks quite utilitarian. Maybe it is the green, but it is like the military designed it….

    2. I agree too, maybe because it’s so ugly, it makes it stands apart from the rest.

  12. *different

    1. Hmm they are sponsored by airbus, maybe they took inspiration fromthis

  13. The weird front section appears as if there is a face with a long nose and wearing sunglasses and looking down on the road, with a really large mustache.

    1. @hzh00 hahahaha impossible to not see it ! you just hit the jackpot !

    2. It took me a while, but now it’s impossible to ‘unsee’ it :D

  14. That looks like no thought went into it at all. It looks like they were building it out of lego and couldn’t find the right piece so just used any old bit

  15. My loooooooooord!

  16. Hideous. On the other hand, is this the first design we’ve seen which attaches the front wing to the finger rather than the wider nose. I’m bit surprised because I would have thought there would be too much flex or pivot in the wing with the supports being so central.

    1. I wonder how many cars will look much different in March.

    2. That’s because the upper nose is a vanity panel, it’s not a structural element. It’s too weak to attach it to the front wing, so they were forced to attach the wing to the lower nose. I think Caterham is the only team with this design (thankfully!).

  17. In a weird way i kinda like it, at least I like the fact the nose doesn’t go past the front wing anyway, but it is something else.

  18. Now we have a penis racing car

  19. I know this is not really the case… But looking at this I get the feeling they put zero thought into the whole front end… It’s a no-effort “How-little bodywork do we actually need?”-job. Not even a vanity panel to mask the stepped chassis. And that must create lift instead of downforce.

    I could live with the penis-noses… But this is just a bloody horror movie.

  20. This car could really do with a vanity panel! But hey, lets be glad we have a grid of very distinct cars this year!

  21. I doubt whether tony will be available for 2015

  22. It looks a bit like they completely forgot about the new nose regs and in a panic constructed something out of empty cereal boxes and loo rolls.

  23. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA

  24. Well I like it!

    The variation in all the looks this year is really great to see, after a few years of homogeneous designs. It’ll be really interesting to see who’s pulled something special out of nowhere, and for some reason, this looks quick to me. Probably because it’s kind of a combination of the Ferrari vacuum cleaner, and the other phallic noses. It looks like they’ve maximised airflow underneath well.

  25. I’ve liked pretty much all the others, but this is really…. incredibly hideous – esthetically speaking that is; would be funny if it was fast enough to play in the midfield, then it’ll be everyone’s favourite ugly duckling. I wish this team all the best, but man, that it is not a pretty car.

  26. I had a really long day, and this was the first image I opened up when I came back home. Made my day, as I could not stop laughing for 5 minutes.

  27. Who let the dogs out, who, who, who??

  28. MY EYES!

  29. It looks as if they forgot the mid part of the nose. The base is their, the tip too, the rest they probably sold as car art to make some extra cash.

  30. I like this one because it’s just bonkers.
    It must be more advanced than we think, because Caterham are calling it CT05, not CT04

    1. CT04 is the Aero Seven presumably @bullfrog

      1. Got it, thanks – the CT… numbers aren’t just for F1, but road & sports cars too.

        1. Yeah, last year was the CT03 because the CT02 was their project with Alpine…

    2. @bullfrog So is it really CT05 or CT04? I don’t understand.

  31. Seriously, you spend hundreds of millions, gather the best drivers in the world and then make them drive these… things?

    1. maybe that’s why Marcus Ericsson @girts!

  32. No wonder this was the first car to pass the crash test. It looks like a tank!

  33. Oh come on! Is this what the sport I love has come to?

    1. Some interesting details though on a closer look. front pullrod, cooling up in the roll hoop, odd horizontal turning vane above the splitter.

  34. I think someone has been stealing from the Mad Max 2 set.

  35. That nose looks awful!
    And surely not only is that sloping rearward nose going to create drag isnt it also going to generate (albeit a tiny amount) lift as well to counteract the downforce the nose generates?

  36. Kevin McDonald
    28th January 2014, 14:47

    The nose aside, I’m really curious what on earth is going on with those side pods.
    They are so fat and ‘square’ looking its almost like a early 90’s car.

  37. Looking at all of the elements, I just have a feeling that this is not going to be very fast at all (happy to eat humble pie). They have not even bothered to cut in the side pods to get air-flow to the rear of the car. The open bodywork at the back is just a wasted opportunity. I understand that Caterham are working to a limited budget, but surely they could have done better than this…

    1. petebaldwin (@)
      28th January 2014, 15:11

      I agree – no undercut at all, catastrophically ugly, no real flow to it.

      With the rest so far, if you cover up the noses, they look fairly nice but not this. This just looks…. budget.

  38. Oh my god….what did they do to that poor car? Were they intentionally trying to make it as ugly as humanly possible????? OH MY GOD! That is hideous.

    1. OK, I just looked at it again….and it’s even worse a second time. Somebody beat that poor thing with an ugly stick, knocked it out of the ugly tree (and it hit every branch on the way down) and landed on it’s head! Then they glued the ugly stick on it’s nose.

      You’d have to tie pork chops around that things front wings to get the dog to play with it.

  39. I may be in a minority here, but I prefer this a thousand times over the other finger-nosed cars. At least there’ll be no Ann Summers-related references.

    Once again, it’s incredibly interesting to see yet another different interpretation of the rules. If nothing else, 2014 has visually produced the widest range of car designs in years.

  40. I really like it, I think the negative comments to this are so over the top. look at the car as a whole not just the nose tip – look at the rest, the colour scheme etc. I think in years to come this years cars will be respected because so many look so individual, – reminds me a bit of the 70s, but unfortunantly the nose can be so individual at the moment

  41. Budgets at the back of the grid are very tight. Still, I’m surprised Caterham ran out of money and couldn’t finish building the nose.

  42. petebaldwin (@)
    28th January 2014, 15:07

    :D Wow….. Not sure what to say about that. It’s certainly different!

  43. petebaldwin (@)
    28th January 2014, 15:07

    :D Wow….. Not sure what to say about that. It’s certainly different!

  44. I’m sorry, F14 T, for having insulted you! And you too, MP4-29, and you as well, FW36…
    My dear CT04, you are as ugly as the Ensign N179!

  45. Is that a pullrod suspension ??

  46. Boxy, bulky, ugly, this is the contender to their make or break year… I’m not very optimistic about it

  47. maarten.f1 (@)
    28th January 2014, 15:15

    ROFL, just when I thought we had seen the worst already. Hahahahaha

  48. formula 1 cars should not like like this :/

  49. I like that it’s a very bold design. A lot of the others seem to have just taken a 2013 style nose and put a wang on the front of it, whereas Caterham seem to have explored the concept in a bit more depth. If it looked like all the others I’d be disappointed, but this at least shows they are thinking creatively and innovatively. I have no idea whether or not it’ll prove to be better or worse than anyone else’s design, but aesthetics wont count for anything either way. I’m sure they’d rather have an ugly midfielder than a pretty backmarker, and if it delivers the goods performance wise, then people will soon forget what it looks like.

    In fact, I have a feeling a lot of the other noses we’ve seen so far are more like placeholders and there are lots more unusual designs waiting to be rolled out through the year. This is the first test and nothing more than a shakedown, so there will be little or no aero work going on. Same with the mega sidepods – start conservative with a chunky sidepod, see how the cooling looks and then incrementally develop the parts through the rest of pre-season testing. If your car is the only one that doesn’t blow up, because you’ve got massive sidepods with lots of cooling, then you’ve made the right choice. I’m certainly not stupid enough to sit here and scoff at the size of the sidepods, as if the people at Caterham suddenly forgot about undercutting and airflow, rather than made a pragmatic decision about the best way to design a car around totally untested technology.

    1. Well said, and bet your bottom dollar if it works, and the cooling is man enough it could be, just could be a contender for midfield.

  50. MY EYES!!!!!!!

  51. I think they stole this design from a child with some crayons who scribbled on a dinner placemat.

  52. Not hard to see who is going be at the back of the grid? Horrific!!!

    1. Not necessarily.

  53. And I thought the Renault R29 couldn’t be beat on terms of ugliness.

  54. Hideous. Who signed this design off? Possibly the ugliest F1 car ever, and there’s been quite a few down the years to choose from. Let’s just hope it doesnt turn out to be this years ‘Brawn’ and everybody copies it.

  55. So it isn’t pretty, but it’s very interesting nonetheless. If I remember correctly, Caterham were the first ones to pass the mandatory crash test, which starts making sense now: they weren’t sure if this nose cone design would pass the test or if they would have to start from scratch.

    Anyway, the nose is very narrow, so the obstruction to the airflow passing underneath the nose is relatively small I’d imagine. And aside from that, it’s nice to see them try pullrod front suspension.

  56. Massive Lol. I really bursted into laughter wen the image popped up! Talk about airflow underneath the body.

  57. So they’ve gone for a proboscis and a step in the nose. Obviously one odd looking feature isn’t enough for them. Though I suppose if it gets plenty of airflow underneath the car, then it could be a significant advantage.

  58. Front crash with lotus will be shown after 10pm ;)

  59. Chris Brighton
    28th January 2014, 17:22

    That is hidious. Worst car out of them all by a long shot.

  60. I don’t know why but I think this looks like one of the better noses. probably because the front wing is held up by the tip itself.
    The colour scheme is not busy. The green and black work really well together tough I would probably have made all of the front wing black except the outside of the end plates. Would make it looks like a nice 90s car.

    Marcus is said to have paid 11 million for his seat. I see no sponsors of that.

    1. Marcus said in an interview, that for the first time in his life he is now getting paid to drive a racecar.

    2. @verstappengp – The launch of the car was delayed by several hours because of a technical glitch. With all the new regulations, sticking sponsor decals on the car was probably a pretty low priority.

  61. I sure hope the bodywork is just a temporary ad-hoc solution… X-(

  62. This is what slow looks like. I’d love to eat my own words, but I think this is the car that firmly puts Caterham at the back and out of F1.

    As people have said, and ignoring the front, the car just looks budget. I generally find that if a car looks slow, it usually is.

  63. Hey @magnificentgeoffrey, you may want to consider changing your livery. This is going to be a hard team to root for this year despite Kobayashi in the car.

  64. I see they still insist on using a colour that is unflattering at best.

    Interesting approach to the nose, but the lip does the aesthetics no favours. If the tongue is too flimsy, it could be a problem in the event of an accident, but if it is too thick, then it’s going to interrupt airflow under the car.

  65. Stephen Higgins
    28th January 2014, 20:09

    And now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to be sick.

  66. Haha, that is amazing.

  67. This Caterham CT05 looks more like the CT01, the big square thing, I also noticed the side panels are made up of lots of small panels on both sides. Not sure this is finished yet.

  68. I dont understand why you guys hate this so much ive always thought F1 cars are more function than form and this caterham arrival makes sense to me seems like they took a reading of the rules went as far outside the box as possible and went with it the other teams all went the same route cheers to caterham for going outside the stupid box f1 regs put these guys in

  69. Check out pictures of the CT05.

    Then, immediately wish you hadn’t.

    That can’t possibly be clean aerodynamically, no matter how much air is being funneled under!

  70. This nose is very interesting! :)

  71. No wonder they have an all new driver line up. What self respecting veteran racer would let himself be seen in that monstrosity! I will give them credit for being different though.

  72. Seriously, what is that?

  73. Looks like they just stuck a long sausage on the front of the old nose.

  74. Alex McFarlane
    29th January 2014, 11:31

    This is one of the ugliest noses of all time, I had to google the ugliest F1 cars ever to find an equal.
    I think I see a way out of this.. the Dallara DW12 looks great at the front and not so great at the back. The 2014 F1 cars look great at the back and hideous at the front.. any photoshoppers care to weave a hybrid of the two?

  75. Ugh,ugh!Take it away,it stings my eyes.
    What was that?It was ugly,it had a box front with sausages coming out…

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