Malaysia's Caterham F1 Team Ready To Push Midfield Teams

KUALA LUMPUR, March 10 (Bernama) -- Malaysian-owned Formula One team Caterham F1 Team, based in the United Kingdom, is ready to put on a strong challenge at the season opening Formula One Grand Prix World Championship held in Melbourne from March 16 to 18. "Now it is time for us to take our place as a midfield team, and we have everything in place to do just that. "If we do, and find ourselves racing teams like Williams, Toro Rosso and Sauber, I feel that will be an incredible achievement, from a starting point of an empty factory in September 2009 to racing teams who have decades on us in terms of establishment and development," said its team principal Tan Sri Tony Fernandes, as quoted in the team's official website. Fernandes added that the team would keep on fighting all year round to bridge the gap with the frontrunners. "Melbourne 2012 is a very important race for us and one I am possibly more excited about than any race we have participated in our two short years in F1. We shed the new team tag at the start of 2011, but for most of last season we were racing in what felt like no-man's land. "We were comfortably ahead of the two teams that made their debut at the same time as us in 2010, and for a large part of last year we were what felt like inches away from the teams just ahead," he added. As for one of the team drivers, Finland's Heikki Kovalainen, the team has been gearing up for its first race after having a solid testing session. "After three solid weeks of testing, we're heading to Melbourne in good shape. We've clearly moved on from where we started in 2011 and are a long way ahead of where we were in 2010 but we're still staying very realistic about what we can do this season. "Our reliability has been good, and both Vitaly and I put in laps that showed we are close to the pace we want to be. But as everyone knows, the tests don't really tell you anything about where you are against everyone else, so we won't really know anything until Saturday (qualifying session) in Melbourne," said Kovalainen. Newly appointed Russia's Vitaly Petrov, said the team won't be in a position to fight for the podium but the main goal would be to push hard on the midfield teams at the opening race. "Usually there are quite a few retirements in Australia, and there are a couple of areas of the track that don’t leave any room for error, so I hope we're there at the end of the race and able to take advantage of whatever's happened ahead," said Petrov, who scored his first podium in Melbourne last year. -- BERNAMA