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| © Caterham |
Caterham has confirmed that it will shift its base from Hingham to the heart of the motorsport industry in Leafield by the end of the month.
Renovation and refurbishment at the Leafield Technical Centre in Oxfordshire started Monday with the Formula 1 team, an arm of the Caterham Group, slated to be the first business to move to the new location.
"While that work is taking place the F1 team’s race trucks have left Hingham with our 2012 race cars for the last time," said team principal Tony Fernandes. "The next time they are back in the UK they will go straight to Leafield.
"More than 200 of the F1 team staff are making the move to Oxfordshire over the next few weeks and when we have finished the refurbishment, in late October 2012, we will have a facility that will put us on a par with the teams we are trying to catch in F1," he added.
The decision was made as the group intends to expand its varied businesses which includes its GP2 team and its automotive and technology divisions, in what is a major move for the Anglo-Malaysian squad since it began its journey in 2009.
"At that point we had four full-time employees, a couple of notepads and a rather daunting joblist that many people said was utterly unachievable," Fernandes remarked.
The move will get Caterham's range of businesses that complement each other under one roof with the the investment indicating that the group is serious about its long-term plans.
The new location is deemed to be a logical step in the growth of Caterham Group as it also allows the organisation to access and attract the pool of talent from the area.
"I have been aware that there have been people we wanted to bring to Norfolk who were reluctant to move their families out of ‘motorsport valley’ where all the UK based F1 teams, and their associated supply chains and partners, are based," technical director Mark Smith pointed out. "But it was undeniable that geography may have prevented us from expanding at quite the rate we want to.
"Now Leafield is open we have no barriers," he said.