Caterham has confirmed that it will leave its Norfolk base and move to Leafield in August of this year.

13109 - Caterham confirms Leafield move

The team has been based at Hingham since it was first established in 2009 ahead of its Formula One debut the following year. It also runs a GP2 team out of the same factory, but having acquired Caterham Cars to add to the group the team will move to the former Arrows headquarters in Oxfordshire to bring the race teams and car company under the same roof.

Team principal Tony Fernandes said that bringing both ventures together would help both the team and Caterham Cars to progress.

"The factory in Hingham has been our home since we were first granted our entry into the F1 World Championship in September 2009 and it has served us extremely well, giving us the perfect platform to establish both the F1 team and our GP2 team in the first stages of our development," Fernandes said. "However, as both teams grew, and in the planning process we went through when acquiring Caterham Cars and establishing the wider Caterham Group, it became clear that we needed to house the car company in the same facility as our racing operations, to give us the best chance to meet our future goals on and off track. We began looking for a site that could be adapted to suit the future needs of our racing and road car operations and Leafield quickly became the obvious choice."

Fernandes also said that Caterham Cars would have a new facility that will be built on the site, while Caterham Composites will continue to be housed in Norfolk.

"We propose moving the F1 and GP2 teams to the new site in or around August 2012, giving us ample time to build up the infrastructure required to house all the critical elements of both teams, and propose moving Caterham Cars into a new, bespoke development and production facility on the same site in due course. We are able to build the new home for Caterham Cars from the ground up on the Leafield site, giving us a permanent home in the perfect location for two of the primary arms of the Caterham Group. We will be consulting with all our team about the proposed move before we make any decisions about exactly which functions will be located to the new site."