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Caterham

Caterham Seven 620R revealed

Caterham Seven 620R

Ahead of its public debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed this weekend Caterham has revealed details of its most powerful Seven model ever, the 620R.

Powered by a supercharged 2.0 litre Ford Duratec engine the 620R produces a very tasty 310bhp (230kW). It’ll be fast, right? Very much so, the official press release claims 0–62mph can be despatched in “under 2.8 seconds”.

Kerb weight for the 620R is being withheld for now, we suspect it will be revealed  during the Goodwood FoS, but we know it will be light. For example, the Superlight R500 is only 506kg, while the entry level Roadsport weighs 550kg.

“The 620R is the most hardcore production Seven ever built for the road,” boasts Graham Macdonald, Caterham Cars CEO. “The R500 claimed its place in motoring history as a benchmark for lightweight sportscar performance but this new vehicle pushes the boundaries even further.”

Macdonald then goes on to give the 620R something of a health warning. “While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this car for those inexperienced in driving Caterhams, we always ensure that even our fastest cars retain the manageable delivery of power that makes them accessible, despite the daunting statistics,” he added.

The price tag in old Blighty is a fiver under £50K and the order book is now open. A slightly less extreme 620S will be released later in the year.

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2013 German Grand Prix in pictures

2013 German Grand Prix

Here we are with a bumper edition of F1 pics this week. There’s over 100 photos from the 2013 German Grand Prix for you below, there’s some really great images too. We hope you like them.

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2013 British Grand Prix in pictures

2013 British Grand Prix

Here’s your pics from an epic British Grand Prix at Silverstone. If not for a customary dodgy start we may have been looking at Mark Webber with hands raised in triumph in the photo above. Instead Mark almost won, on the back of a gutsy recovery effort.

Ifs, buts and maybes—as likeable and charismatic as Mark has been during his F1 career—that pretty much sums him up. Now that his Porsche move has been confirmed, we can enjoy the Mark Webber F1 farewell tour. Certainly a win at Silverstone would have been a great way to start the journey, but a win at the Nürburgring, the venue of his maiden grand prix victory would have a nice symmetry to it as well.

Oh yeah, well done Nico Rosberg. A solid win for you. There’s over 90 pics from the British GP ready to be enjoyed after the break.

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2013 Canadian Grand Prix in pictures

2013 Canadian Grand Prix

The 2013 Canadian Grand Prix was a pretty easy day out for Sebastian Vettel. Indeed those ‘Mounties’ were as close as anyone got to him on race day. We didn’t want you to miss out on the fun, so here’s 86 images from the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve that will bring you as close to Vettel as any of his competitors got.

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Caterham

New entry-level Caterham on way

Caterham Seven entry level teaser

It’s almost as if the Chris Harris video and this news were destined to arrive together. Caterham has announced they will be making a new entry-level Seven with a target price of £17,000 (AU$26,750).

The new model doesn’t have a name yet, but will feature a Euro 6 compliant engine and is being made to celebrate 40 years of Caterham making the Seven. It will be launched around September with deliveries expected before the year is out.

Firm details will be announced in time and for now Caterham Cars CEO, Graham Macdonald, has this to say: “As we celebrate our 40th anniversary at Caterham, it feels good to be taking the brand right back to where it started. Colin Chapman designed the original Seven to be entirely ‘fit-for-purpose’—a racing car for the road with the driving experience at its heart.

“With that in mind, the new entry-level Seven will be uncomplicated, easy to run and, most important of all, an intuitive and exciting drive.”

Sounds fantastic Graham, carry on.

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Caterham Morgan Video

VIDEO: Why don’t people buy more Caterhams?

Chris Harris loves Caterhams

In his latest video Chris Harris keeps it real, driving two British sportscars. One we yearn for ourselves, the other, well not so much.

First, Harris drives the Morgan 3 Wheeler. Good for him. We just can’t warm to it. It’s just a bit daft and we’ve heard better sounding sewing machines than that V-twin engine. It’s just one step too far down the oddball scale for us. You may disagree, and we wouldn’t begrudge you at all.

But a Caterham on the other hand. Now, that we like. True, there’s never been a Caterham or Lotus 7 with a decent looking backside. But who cares! The front is raw and purposeful, which matches the driving experience.

Harris describes the Caterham best when he says: “This is absolutely pure!”

Why don’t we see more Caterhams on the roads?

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2013 Monaco Grand Prix in pictures

2013 Monaco Grand Prix

As you can see Nico Rosberg was pretty happy to have won the 2013 Monaco Grand Prix. And who can blame him. It’s one thing to win the race for yourself, but to do so 30 years after your old man achieved the same thing is very special. Well done him and well done Keke.

The existence of the Monaco Grand Prix really is an anachronism in the 21st century, but we hope it never goes. Watching the cars fly through turns 13 and 14 is perhaps the best example of the directness of F1 cars we see all year. And the dramatic elevation changes on such a short track, although flattened out on TV screens, also makes for one of the most spectacular circuits all year.

In our latest F1 in pictures gallery we have exactly 100 images from the glitz and glamour enjoyed by all in Monte Carlo.

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2013 Spanish Grand Prix in pictures

2013 Spanish Grand Prix

Here’s your photographic refresher of what went down at the 2013 Spanish Grand Prix. As usual there’s an excellent assortment of images, there’s 97 in all, starting with a sea of Maranello red.

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2013 Bahrain Grand Prix in pictures

2013 Bahrain Grand Prix

A little later than usual here’s your pictorial reminder of the 2013 Bahrain Grand Prix. There’s 87 pics to fill your racing boots this week. Be sure to check back in after the Spanish Grand Prix for more wallpaper-friendly F1 pics in a few weeks.

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2013 Chinese Grand Prix in pictures

2013 Chinese Grand Prix

Before we head off to Tasmania for a week to follow the close knit tarmac rally community here’s 93 photos from the Chinese Grand Prix. We hope you like them!

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2013 Malaysian Grand Prix in pictures

2013 Malaysian Grand Prix

So, the Malaysian Grand Prix, you may have heard about it. It’s a perfect snapshot of how the mainstream media in Australia handles Mark Webber.

Last week the local media tore shreds from Mark after his woeful start, which, funnily enough, ended up not being entirely his fault. Now, the media is lauding him as some sort of saint-in-waiting who has been dealt an unimaginable injustice by that devil in disguise named Sebastian Vettel.

It’s also an excellent example of how quickly the media world can force things to spiral things out of control; we’ll go into a bit that later.

Anyway, enough banter, here’s the pics from Sepang. We hope you like them.

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2013 Australian Grand Prix in pictures

2013 Australian Grand Prix

Aww, isn’t that cute, Kimi and his Australian Grand Prix trophy sharing a quiet moment together in front of their adoring fans.

And with that image another pictorial journey in Formula 1 begins. It’s AUSmotive’s third year of compiling F1 pics after each race to share with our readers and so perhaps now is as good a time as any to share a little about how it all works.

The images are all sourced directly from each team, via their media portals. While we wish we had the budget, time and ability to either commission photographers to act on our behalf or attend every race ourselves that’s simply not the case. It’s all done from AUSmotive HQ in Canberra.

As to the image selection, generally, we select six images from each team, three for each driver. So with 11 teams competing in 2013, at a minimum, you’ll see 66 pics in each gallery. Actually, make that 60 images, because Marussia still won’t answer our emails.

In addition to the base selection of images we give the winning driver and his team extra attention with anywhere from 12 to 30-plus photos. That often depends on the team. Pics from Red Bull normally feature heavily, in part due to having an Australian driver on its books, but also because they provide the best gallery each race and make it the easiest to access them. Ferrari is probably next best. But Mercedes, and sometimes McLaren and Lotus, don’t always give us a lot to work with, which some may argue is fair enough.

Ideally, we like to get photos from raceday, and where there’s a good behind the scenes shot we’ll include them too, no matter the team. Getting back to Mercedes, as this article goes live they only had a handful of images from Sunday in Melbourne, although none of them were on-track photos, so all the F1 W04 images you see are from the practice days. Unfortunately, this is typical for Mercedes/Daimler.

So there you go, we hope that helps you understand a bit more what we’re doing with these galleries and if you have any ideas on the type of images you’d like to see, or any other ideas, please let us know. You can think about it while you’re taking in the 105 images waiting for you after the break.