Caterham team principal Christijan Albers has left the team just two months after joining it.
Albers was appointed to run the team after it was purchased by a consortium of Swiss and Middle Eastern investors in July.
In a statement released today he said: “Over the past months I have dedicated all my energy to ensure the takeover of the team would go as smoothly as possible and to achieve the best possible result for our investors, sponsors and all the people involved with Caterham F1 Team.”
“As such I worked tirelessly to reconstruct the team while, at the same time, making technical updates on the car. In doing this we created both a better foundation for the team’s future and achieved significant improvements on the speed of the car.
“Due to private reasons and in order to be able to spend more time with my family, I will resign from my position as CEO of Caterham F1 Team. I wish the team all the best in the future.”
Caterham’s deputy team principal Manfredi Ravetto has taken over from Albers, who he described as “an asset to the team since the moment he joined”.
“It’s been a challenging last few months, but we have moved forward together and we want to thank him for his hard work and commitment to the team,” Ravetto added. “We wish him the best for the future.”
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Image © Caterham/LAT
PhilEReid (@philereid)
7th September 2014, 16:02
Beginning of the end I feel. And with this new rumour of 3 teams dropping out for 2015 (though I’ll believe it when I see it), it’s all kicking off. Interesting to also here Haas may just stop as well. All conjecture at this point but interesting if true. Could see the beginning of the 3 car teams. Personally, I’d prefer it but that’s just me.
Jon (@patomilan)
7th September 2014, 16:12
Yeah, what’s with Adam Parr’s tweet about 8 teams with several of them entering 3 cars for next year?!?? Seems bizarre and too sudden to be true…
PhilEReid (@philereid)
7th September 2014, 16:14
@patomilan Yeah, I can’t say I fully believe it, but then with the fact these teams have been struggling so much for money, it’s not too hard to see any truth in it.
Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
7th September 2014, 16:13
@philereid That would be good for drivers and top teams, but the beginning of the end really.. how many F1 jobs and how much infrastructure (e.g. losing F1 team bases in the UK) would disappear? Could be 500-1000.
Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
7th September 2014, 16:18
And simply adopting the Premier League money spreading would enable 12 or 13 competitive teams (no one miles clear like Mercedes, no one miles behind like the bottom 3 teams), with less emphasis on pay-drivers (read: more Frijns, less Ericsson). Not to mention the opposite of above, and another 500 staff hired for these current smaller teams.
Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
7th September 2014, 16:19
I hope my nightmare scenario of 8 teams in the 2015 Teams/Drivers line up doesn’t actually come true – if so, I’ll have to actually revise it and give a proper estimate.
PhilEReid (@philereid)
7th September 2014, 16:24
@fastiesty
Never thought of it like that before. A very good point.
Obviously, the sharing of money would be the absolute best way to do it, and that would always be preferable, but whilst we have people like Ecclestone in charge, I can’t see it happening.
Also, I mean that if we do see 3 teams leave, then I’m all for 3 car teams over just the remaining 8 teams running 2 cars.
Iestyn Davies (@fastiesty)
7th September 2014, 16:52
@philereid True, which is why the German bribery case was a missed opportunity for the FIA.
I think the teams might even be obligated to run 3 cars – Ecclestone has a contracted ‘minimum number’ of entries, which might be somewhere from 12-18.
spoutnik (@spoutnik)
7th September 2014, 20:45
@philereid do you recall some sources for those rumors? Also, I wonder which teams are concerned by those. Caterham would be my first bet, but then? Lotus maybe? And after that, I don’t know, really … I am quite skeptical.
George O'Donnell (@georgeod)
7th September 2014, 16:03
I hope Christijan enjoys more time with his family, which of course must be the only reason why he is leaving the team. At least that’s what it says in the release.
Patrick (@paeschli)
7th September 2014, 17:38
Nice one :P
Caterham, the team where there’s always something happening.
I don’t expect them to be in on the grid in 2016.
BasCB (@bascb)
8th September 2014, 5:58
Yep, family reasons. We can be sure there was no disagreement, nor feeling of despair about doing something with nothing available.
Mashiat (@mashiat)
7th September 2014, 16:03
Caterham are going downhill as fast as a 88.72462784623788 kg rock dropped from the top of the top of the top of Mount Everest
Marc Thielke (@motor)
7th September 2014, 19:46
Terminal Velocity?
Max Verstappen FTW
7th September 2014, 22:28
you could have saved yourself a lot of effort by just calling it a 89Kg rock.. i mean it is nice that you so precisely define that the rock weighs 88.72462784623788Kg but i’d say that is a lot of numbers behind the komma ;)
Marc Thielke (@motor)
7th September 2014, 23:17
Two thoughts on your comment. Now that we can cut and paste numbers simply from calculation apps to discussion apps the number of numbers isn’t an increase in effort.
For those of us who suffered under the restrictions of the display of the TI-35 it is liberating to splash around digits greater than 8places.
Mashiat (@mashiat)
9th September 2014, 4:49
You’re correct, I should have made less accurate. The new calculation is:
88.72462784623789 ±0.00000000000001
greg-c (@greg-c)
8th September 2014, 23:31
@mashiat
@motor
I had a good giggle at that comment but now i’m confused, !
Did you actually seek out a rock weighing 88.72462784623788 kg or did you weigh the random rock at the top?
or is 88.72462784623788 kg the weight of Caterhams debt in $$$ bills ?
More Coffee Please !!!!!!!
Marc Thielke (@motor)
9th September 2014, 1:36
Sorry for not showing my work. I took the information given and made a list.
The rock has a mass of 88.72462784623788kg
It would fall from the top of Mt Everest which is 8848m
The acceleration due to gravity is 9.806m per second per second
The density of air would vary from the top of the mountain to sea level but the terminal velocity would be the same at sea level as the rock would decelerate in the thicker air so we can use the value of 1.2754 kg/m^3
The rock could be calcium, silicon or iron. Regardless it would be about the size of a space hopper and have a projected area of about 1.74 sq/ft
At this point I realised Mashiat might have been joking and was just saying Caterham have reached the maximum downward speed they can, terminal velocity.
Mashiat (@mashiat)
9th September 2014, 4:52
I wasn’t joking, I tried that experiment and and sad to say that it had tragic results…resulting in the death of an old man weighing exactly 67.467358240718337245734kg ±0.000000000000000000003.
P.S. I died in the process, BUT I LIVED. Don’t know what it means? Well don’t ask me cuz I don’t either.
StefMeister (@stefmeister)
7th September 2014, 16:06
Ted Kravitz was saying on Sky that Albers is frustrated/angry that he’s trying to figure out how to organize the team going forward when the funding he keeps been promised isn’t showing up which is holding up key decisions he wants to make for 2015.
BasCB (@bascb)
8th September 2014, 5:59
sounds legit – family reasons
Ed Marques (@edmarques)
7th September 2014, 16:15
Bye Caterham. And it won’t be missed.
pSynrg (@psynrg)
7th September 2014, 16:18
@edmarques
Strange attitude. Do you not realise the erosion of teams from F1, regardless of their level of operation, is one team less to make it viable?
All qualified entrants to F1 are to be applauded and encouraged.
Ed Marques (@edmarques)
7th September 2014, 16:26
Just look at what they are doing this season.
I won’t miss them. The team has ended when Fernades sold it.
I really like the small teams, but this one, the way ther are working, won’t be missed.
Breno (@austus)
7th September 2014, 21:40
At this point Caterham turned Kobayashi’s car into a hooker.
Clark Finlay (@ck2000)
8th September 2014, 14:03
Unfortunately I have to agree with Ed – granted getting more teams into formula one does seem like the best way to go, when we have 3 new team enter and make little or no impact on the sport beside get in the way of front runners and lurching from one financial crisis to another its team to think again.
Of the 3 new teams one went bankrupt and the other 2 have both changed names and to some extent or other ownership. Caterham had the best chance to succeed with Renault and Red Bull parts yet even they ended up putting paid drivers like Ericsson in the car because he brought the team money (he was even out qualified by a guy who just jumped into the car in Spa). Most teams who have gone for paid drivers for a source of income seems to be suffering.
Granted the FIA tried to expand the number of teams by telling them all they could race on a sensible budget without getting anything in place to ensure a sensible budget but things change in F1 very quickly if the teams can’t keep up we needs something new I don’t see the point in having teams in the sport that you know for almost a given will come last in both qualifing and the race unless a miracle happens.
andae23 (@andae23)
7th September 2014, 16:40
That, combined with how sudden his departure has been, is really worrying. I know his wife has been suffering from esophageal cancer, but I really hope that’s not the reason for Albers’ departure.
bosyber (@bosyber)
7th September 2014, 17:31
@Andrea23 didn’t know that, it might have decided his choice, but see above what @stefmeister says about promised money from investors not showing up.
Wish Albers all the best with family though.
bosyber (@bosyber)
7th September 2014, 17:32
Argh autocorrect @andae23
andae23 (@andae23)
7th September 2014, 17:48
@bosyber Yeah, I know that Ted ‘The All-Knowing’ Kravitz had a different theory, but I thought the way the statement was phrased was a little odd. If it’s purely down to money, then why would they mention ‘private reasons’ and ‘spending more time with his family’?
But anyway, I sure hope Kravitz is right.
BasCB (@bascb)
8th September 2014, 6:03
Hm, “private reasons” or “family reasons” is frequently used instead of “being fired for incompetence/big disagreements/displacing company funds/etc. so I thought that would be the reason too @andea23.
But with the cancer thing, it actually makes me think this could very well be genuinely for family reasons, after all the circus is not going to be home from now on more or less until the end of the year and I think that would be really tough to support his wife.
ADD (@addimaf1)
7th September 2014, 16:41
Caterham is in a mess, they brought in Kobayashi for one reason, to beat Jules Bianchi. He did that today and has done it many times previously and they are selling his seat, they must be so interested in money in order for the team to survive they are willing to give up on trying to beat their rivals.
P J Squeak (@pjsqueak)
7th September 2014, 21:50
The Airbus/GE ‘proxy sponsors’ have gone. These were partners of Air Asia rather than ‘real’ sponsors so maybe there hasn’t really been a loss, just no more handouts from the pockets of Mr Fernandez.
Maybe Branson was a much shrewder man getting out early on once the lay of the land was clear.
Mr_Peabody
7th September 2014, 23:04
I’ve been a fan of these guys since the first day but their chronic lack of leadership and maturity will always preclude reaching some level of success beyond their initial best of the new teams. Losing Gascoyne was the beginning of the end for them.
As for the current situation, will Kolles crater another team? Kamui is in a tough spot for sure. I wonder if they’ll even see the end of the season before the hammer falls in bankruptcy court.
Seppo (@helava)
8th September 2014, 1:24
I hope Caterham can still pull it together. I like Kobayashi, and with the new nose, it’s one of the best-looking cars on the grid IMO.