Mike Gascoyne says it's time Caterham F1 team takes another step forward

On Wednesday, the team unveiled its 2012 challenger, the car with which it is hoping to fight in the midfield after finishing in tenth position in the championship last year.

Gascoyne is not making any predictions about how the car will perform until it hits the track, but is adamant that Caterham must make more progress in its third season in Formula 1.

"I think we need to see the car on track first and get feedback from the first tests," said Gascoyne. "Until we run the car, we only have numbers and simulation data to work with.

"But every team wants to move up the grid and we're no different. We finished 10th in the last two years, which has been our target, but now I think it's time we moved forward again. Let's see what happens we get out on track."

Caterham's CT01 features a platypus-style nose that caused quite a stir when it was unveiled, but Gascoyne reckons most of the cars will use a similar design given the regulation changes.

"The regulations have changed to limit the height of the nosebox to try to ensure that noses don't get too high. Our challenge is that you always want to get the chassis as high as possible to allow clean air flow to the underside of the car, and what you see on the CT01 is our solution to that.

"As we're the first car out it is obviously stirring up a lot of debate, but because of the 2012 regulations I think you'll probably be seeing this type of nose on most of the cars this year."

Gascoyne said the production of the new car had been very successful after passing all the mandatory crash tests ahead of the first test.

"From that point of view, we had a very successful development programme and we fully homologated the chassis before Christmas and, actually, I believe we were the first team to pass all the tests," he added.