Caterham completes comeback lineup with Stevens

Caterham has completed its driver lineup for the Abu Dhabi comeback.

The returning backmarker has already confirmed Kamui Kobayashi, but following Marcus Ericsson’s departure, the identity of the second driver had triggered a round of wild speculation.

Caterham ended the uncertainty on Thursday, announcing that 23-year-old British rookie Will Stevens will make his debut in Abu Dhabi this weekend.

Stevens, sixth in the Formula Renault 3.5 series this season, is no stranger to F1, having been a Caterham test driver and almost making his Friday practice debut at Suzuka for Marussia at Suzuka seven weeks ago.

In the end, his Japanese outing was thwarted due to a paperwork holdup.

"We in fact signed Will last week," said Caterham’s head of engineering operations Gianluca Pisanello, "but have had to wait for confirmation of his super licence before making our announcement."

"We know Will very well through his involvement in the Caterham Racing Academy and more importantly he has done a vast amount of time in our simulator, completing around 10,000km, which has built his experience both of this year’s car and with the engineering team that are going to Abu Dhabi. In addition, his 2014 test at Silverstone in our current car, where he completed over 500kms, was very successful and his race pace was very good. As a result, he was one of our best candidates for this race weekend and we are delighted to have secured his services for our return to the F1 grid."

"I’m absolutely thrilled to be getting this opportunity and am very grateful to everyone involved at Caterham F1 Team for giving it to me,"} said Will Stevens. "I feel ready for the challenge of my F1 debut and look forward to working as part of the Team in a race environment after all the work we’ve done together previously in the tests I’ve completed and back at Leafield in the sim. Hopefully this will be something we will be able to carry through to the 2015 season together."