SEASON REVIEW: CATERHAM MOTORSPORT

Wes Fox won a total of 9 Caterham races this year. Photo: www.rachelhorganphotography.co.uk

Three new Caterham champions and two double Caterham champions were crowned last month after another fantastic season of Caterham racing drew to a close in a historic race meeting at Silverstone, the very first on the new International South circuit.

Paul Wilson took the fearsome R300 title hunt to the wire with it only being decided in the last laps of the last race. Despite taking three wins out of the last four races, the Newbury based Sales Director couldn’t quite do enough to stop Jamie Orton adding the Caterham Superlight R300 championship title to his 2010 Roadsport-A crown. Orton has been the man to beat all season, with peerless wins at Rockingham and Zandvoort, and even led the Caterham Supersport championship in the opening rounds before concentrating solely on R300s.

After two years of trying in Academy and Roadsports, Lee Wiggins finally got the better of Jeremy Webb, the pair now contesting Supersports. Unfortunately for them both, Reece Somerfield’s poor start to the year finally came under control in the third race of the year and he did not finish off the podium again, bagging six fastest laps along the way to winning the Caterham Supersport championship. As if winning one championship wasn’t enough, Reece also took the Caterham SuperGraduate title this year!

2010 Academy champion Wes Fox really stepped up a gear this season to dominate Roadsports, a class that had seen our closest racing in the previous two years. The man from Bishops Stortford, cheered on by his family at every event, won eight rounds to win the championship with a weekend in hand. And what else would you do with a spare weekend other than race Caterhams? Wes tried his hand at Supersports and stunningly won his first race in that class too! His tally of nine wins across two Caterham championships this season is shared with the equally talented Jamie Orton, who achieved the same in Supersports and R300s.

The Academy has been as popular as ever with Elliott Norris and Andy Welch becoming (incredibly) our 28th and 29th Academy champions. The season finished in style on the full Silverstone GP circuit, a first for the Academy, bathed in unusually warm October sunshine, also something of a first for this year’s Academy who’s previous races where all but run in Scuba gear!

And as 2011 ends, 2012 begins. The fifty-six drivers of the 2012 Academy season will be meeting in just a few weeks for the first part of their odyssey, whilst the seasoned campaigners anxiously wait to hear what circuits will be in store for them next year. 2012 also welcomes a new championship. Supersport becomes Tracksport and a new Supersport adds more power and an LSD to our most popular championship. Confused? No, it’s simple; the new Motorsport ladder for the Academy cars is Academy-Roadsport-Tracksport-Supersport, followed by the Superlight R300, a dedicated high performance Caterham race car. The best just got better.

Simon Lambert
Caterham Motorsport Manager

2011 Final Championship Points:

CATERHAM ACADEMY GROUP 1
CATERHAM ACADEMY GROUP 2
CATERHAM ROADSPORTS
CATERHAM SUPERSPORTS
CATERHAM R300 SUPERLIGHT