1982 world champion Keke Rosberg has tipped Caterham to take a “step forward” in 2012.<\/p>\n
But the Finn, whose son is the Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg, also said Heikki Kovalainen’s team could face a speed-bump in the form of its scheduled factory move.<\/p>\n
“That will be a big distraction,” Rosberg, 63, told the MTV3 broadcaster.<\/p>\n
“It’s not just moving a few machines but hundreds of people, not all of whom will want to move schools and children and the like.\u00a0 Let’s see how they cope with it.”<\/p>\n
As for the former Lotus team’s overall prospects for this season, however, Rosberg said: “They will probably go one step up from where they were last year, if only because they now have KERS in the picture.<\/p>\n
“That should reduce the gap to Williams and Force India.”<\/p>\n
Rosberg said he is a supporter of the small teams, like Caterham and the struggling Marussia and HRT.<\/p>\n
“You have to start somewhere; you can’t come along and be Ferrari.\u00a0 And there is a need for the small teams, otherwise you would just have McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull.\u00a0 You need the top teams, the midfield teams and the small teams.<\/p>\n
“Hopefully one day they can develop into a big team — remember Stewart became Jaguar and finally Red Bull.”<\/p>\n
Rosberg said he rejects Ferrari’s idea that small teams should give up on building their own cars and instead be allowed to buy a customer chassis.<\/p>\n
“Imagine Ferrari is a half second faster than anyone else, so all of a sudden you have half the field with Ferraris all ahead of the others.<\/p>\n
“If you could buy a last year’s car, it increases the numbers and gives better access to the young drivers, engineers and mechanics,” he added.<\/p>\n
But the problem with that, he said, is F1’s constantly changing rules.<\/p>\n
“For example, the nose has changed for this year, so you can’t really use last year’s car (now).\u00a0 If you have a team that used to buy a car from someone else, what will they do then?<\/p>\n
“F1 has always been the category in which teams build their own cars, otherwise it’s GP2 with a lot of Ferraris,” said Rosberg.<\/p>\n
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