Yesterday in an interview with the media, Caterham driver Kamui Kobayashi has stated his belief that the Caterham Formula 1 team’s restructuring will pay off, after the squad’s new owners announced staff cuts and a management reshuffle.
This week saw the announcement that Caterham has lost up to 40 members of staff including their team manager Graham Watson, head of track operations Gerry Hughes and deputy technical director Jody Eggington were among the personnel laid off in the restructuring that followed the team’s sale to an unidentified consortium.
Two weeks ago it was announced that ex-F1 racer Christijan Albers has been installed as team principal of the Caterham team and a development package set to arrive for August’s Belgian Grand Prix has been given the green light. In his interview to the media yesterday, Kobayashi believes that the restructuring within the team could help them move in the right direction. Kobayashi stated the following:-
‘Yeah, I have to believe that, and work 100 per cent, or even 120 per cent. We have a different structure, so we will see what happens, but my part of the job doesn’t change. The team has nothing to lose and nothing to save.
‘Development was not doing what we expected. We were maybe struggling with the budget, but now we have money and we have updates for the future, which means we can do more if we want to.’
From what Kobayashi has stated in his interview yesterday, it is clear that Caterham had to under their new management restructure the team not only to meet their aims
and objectives but to also understand where the problems lie and try to improve as much as they can for the rest of the season ahead.
Even though it is unclear if Kobayashi will stay at Caterham next season under the new management structure, there is no doubt that he will continue to do his job that he is contracted to do this season and try to help improve his and the team’s performance using his experience and expertise in the sport as much as he can.
As we have seen, Caterham the past few seasons under its old management structure have struggled to make any significant steps to improve their performance and close the gap to their rivals. A lack of budget has contributed to this alongside other factors such as personnel and not getting the best out of them.
But all they can do now is what Kobayashi has pointed out which is to use the budget they have found to bring to the track as soon as the Belgium Grand Prix in a few weeks time and hope that they will bring at least a small sign of improvement and pace with their car.
Kobayashi was assured prior to the British GP that his 2014 contract would be honoured, despite immediate speculation about driver line-up changes. Further on in his interview, he has stated that his understanding was just that he needed to keep performing well for the rest of the season. Kobayashi added the following:-
‘I don’t need a guarantee, because I don’t work in the company, I’m more independent. If I’m not doing a good job tomorrow maybe I’ll be fired tomorrow! But I’ll be fine because this is racing and the way it has to be for a driver. We need to feel pressure.’
As he rightly points out, if the Caterham team were unhappy with how Kobayashi was performing, then there is no question that the team would be talking to other drivers in order for him to be replaced. There has been speculation that Carlos Sainz Jr has been in talks with Caterham with a chance of gaining a race seat for the remainder of the season, but he has been linked with the race seat of their rookie driver Marcus Ericsson.
But like with everything in Formula One, there has to be an element of pressure that Kobayashi has said and this pressure will ultimately bring out the best in a driver or the worst in a driver. And I am sure that this element of pressure will only further motivate him to achieve the best results that he can achieve.
In the latter stages of his interview, Kobayashi has stated that if Caterham wanted to bring in a funded driver, there would be little he could do. He then added that biggest issue was Caterham’s long-term survival, especially with Marussia now ahead in the world championship and will have to look to the 2015 season. He said the following on both matters:-
‘It depends what they want. I’m more experienced than the other drivers [connected to the team], so I just have to focus on my job. I cannot bring anything money-wise. It’s fine to lose out to a driver with money – this is Formula 1 unfortunately.
‘We’re focused on 2014. If we don’t do well maybe we don’t have a ’15.’
As Kobayashi points out, if Caterham wanted to bring in a funded driver for the rest of the season, there is little that he can about that. But Kobayashi does bring experience and expertise that he has gained during his time with the sport and I feel
that it would be stupid for the Caterham team to get rid of him as they could benefit from this.
Even though Kobayashi cannot bring any more money with him to the Caterham team, he would understand if he was asked to leave his seat for a ‘pay driver’ to take it. As we know that is the current situation that we have in the sport and I feel that it shouldn’t be about the money, it should be about the talent. There is no denying that Kobayashi is a very talented and exciting racing driver, but if he hasn’t got the car underneath him, then it is very hard to show what he can do and what he has shown during his time say with the Sauber team a few seasons back.
All Caterham and Kobayashi can do is focus as much as possible on trying to improve their performance and try to salvage something from this season if possible. I would concede it would be great for both parties if this was achieved, but I fear they are just too far back to do this.
But as Kobayashi says, if they can’t and fail to deliver in 2015, will Caterham be in Formula One in 2015? It wouldn’t make a lot of sense for the new owners to buy a team, to create and adopt a new management structure in the team for it to be scuppered a few months down the line.
If anything, they will be more determined to make 2015 (their first full year in the sport under new ownership) to be the best year for the Caterham team and show what they can do. Question is; will Caterham show what they can do and retain Kobayashi next season? We can only wait and see what happens in the next few months.
