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The new Caterham CT03 could be caught up in the first legality spat of the 2013 F1 season.

In a press conference at Jerez James Allison Technical Director of the Lotus F1 team was asked if he had seen anything of interest on the other new cars, his reply was certainly interesting “It’s a crap answer but I’ve not had time to look at any other cars but our own, bit there is one feature of the Caterham’s exhaust that I don’t think will be there when we get to Melbourne.”



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The feature in question is what appears to be a flow conditioner in the exhaust channel of the Caterham CT03. Lotus has near identical image to the one seen here as the Lotus pit lane photographer was stood next to Racecar’s when they were taken! The conditioner appears to guide the exhaust gasses toward the crucial area at the rear of the car floor which would give the blown diffuser effect. The element is coated in a ceramic thermal barrier coating and is likely to be made of metal not carbon fibre.

The design may fall foul of article 5.8.4 of the 2013 Technical regulations which state that.

Once the exhaust tailpipes, the bodywork required by Article 3.8.4 and any apertures permitted by Article 3.8.5 have been fully defined there must be no bodywork lying within a right circular truncated cone which :

a) Shares a common axis with that of the last 100mm of the tailpipe.

b) Has a forward diameter equal to that of each exhaust exit.

c) Starts at the exit of the tailpipe and extends rearwards as far as the rear wheel centre line.

d) Has a half-cone angle of 3° such that the cone has its larger diameter at the rear wheel centre line.

Furthermore, there must be a view from above, the side, or any intermediate angle perpendicular to the car centre line, from which the truncated cone is not obscured by any bodywork lying more than 50mm forward of the rear wheel centre line.

No formal protest can be lodged yet as in testing the full regulations do not apply.

Caterham has responded to the comments made by Lotus with team boss Cyril Abiteboul stating to Autosport magazine that “My understanding is that it is within the regulations, we tested it last year and nobody made any remark about it. We are quite flattered that James Allison is paying attention to what is happening at our exhausts. There are different ways of looking at it, and definitely we are outside of the cone. The purpose of testing is to test and to understand what is happening. One of the areas that everybody is looking at is to understand how the exhaust effect is working, and where it is going. Therefore anything that helps you better measure that is welcome, at least for the tests. We will see whatever clarification is made before the first race.”



Caterham could keep the turning vane outside of the exhaust cone by giving the exhaust exit a slight upward angle (as it appears to feature above) thus keeping most of the exit channel outside of the cone. But the exhaust plume could still pass through the channel and over the turning vane. The cooling hole above the exhaust exit could serve some purpose in this function.

A full technical analysis can be found here: Caterham CT03

Read more in the December 2012 issue of Racecar Engineering