First pics: Caterham’s 2012 F1 car

Caterham F1 has revealed the first pictures of its 2012 Formula One contender. And they are thus.

The racing outfit that used to be called Team Lotus but isn't Lotus anymore because Lotus wanted to use the name Lotus, is the first team out of the blocks to reveal its 2012 Formula One car.

See more pics of Caterham's 2012 F1 car

Chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne was quick to point out the controversial new nose of the car, saying: "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."

He also confirmed that Caterham will be running KERS for the first time, something Gascoyne hopes will propel his team further up the field. "It's no secret that we'll have KERS on the car this year," he said. "Towards the end of last year it really started to affect us racing with the midfield cars. It hurt us in qualifying and in our eventual race positions. At the last race in 2011, Heikki made a good start and gained a lot of positions but then lost out by not having KERS.

"Having KERS embedded into our 2012 car is another good step forward for us. We had our best ever qualifying in relation to the cars ahead of us in Brazil, and with KERS we could have possibly out-qualified a few of them. So, again, we have another good reason to be very positive about 2012," he added.

Caterham driver Heikki Kovaleinen also tweeted that the new car, dubbed CT-01, is "all on schedule to hit the track on the 7th of February...can't wait".

Caterham F1 boss Tony Fernandes said he was "incredibly proud of everyone at Caterham F1. The start of a new dream. In two years from nothing we have built an F1 team. Can't wait to see the CT-01 in Jerez".

Last year Gascoyne told the BBC he wanted to "take the fight to the more established teams and start beating them" in 2012. Reckon the CT-01 is the car to do it with?