Q&A with Mark Smith

It’s just a short while since you officially joined the team and you’ve already got a new role! Tell us about how things will work for you from now on?

In terms of the day-to-day role, that really won’t change significantly. I have been working as Technical Director since I joined the team working closely with all of the technical groups, so nothing really changes from that point of view.

I will be increasing my level of race attendance, which I think is a positive change, because obviously the ultimate objective is to field two competitive cars and to finish as high up the order as we can, so having a good understanding of exactly what’s happening at the track and having some input into it really just complements the other side of the role that I’ve been doing since I joined the team.

It’s obviously an important move for the team and Tony and the shareholders have placed a lot of trust in you. Is that daunting or is it exciting?

I’m enormously encouraged by it, and to be honest pretty excited by it. I think when the time comes for anybody in any position that they really can’t see where to go next then maybe that’s the time for them to try something different, but at the moment there are quite a few things I can see that we need to do to try to get to wherever the shareholders objectives are and for the time being I’m quite excited about the opportunity of trying to achieve them.

You will be attending more races?

Yes, but I think basically with Jody [Egginton – Chief Engineer] on the technical side at the track and Steve [Nielsen – Sporting Director] from the sporting side, you’ve got two very experienced people on the pitwall making those calls and I think it is very important that those two guys are allowed to control that environment. I think my attendance at races will be to look over all the activity and to support the team.

But your role at the factory is the still the key one?

As Technical Director, the job obviously encompasses all the technical functions and what happens every two weeks or so at the race track is just one aspect of those functions. The key thing is to deliver, as a team, the fastest and most reliable car we can to the guys at the track. In all honesty I suspect that 75 per cent of my role should be focused on what we deliver to the circuit. What happens at the track is almost the icing on the cake. It’s the most visible part obviously, but it will never be optimised unless you deliver something good to the track. So, in reality, the bit that happens away from the public eye is the larger share of the job.

Tell us a little bit about the new car. There are a number of things that have had to be factored in such as the new nose and exhaust regulations, as well as KERS , so is CT01 a departure from what last year’s car?

Not really. The engine partner and the transmission partner are the same as last year, so there’s continuity there, which is always beneficial. In many ways it’s an evolution of last year’s car but yes, some things have inevitably changed.

What we did have the chance to do this year, because we have a bigger design team, was explore more aspects of the design. We had the opportunity to really examine what we wanted to do and arrive at what we think are the best solutions.

Because Mike is now looking after a wider portfolio of technologies, do you think that there is a good chance of things feeding back to the F1 team from that?

It’s possible. But to be honest only time will tell. There will inevitably be, on occasion, things like materials that are relevant, either from us to them or from Caterham Technology and Innovation or Caterham Composites back to us. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some relevancies there.