Former Marussia reserve driver Will Stevens will make his F1 race debut with Caterham in this weekend’s 2014 Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the team have confirmed. Stevens, who has previous testing experience with Caterham, will compete alongside Kamui Kobayashi at Yas Marina.
The 23-year-old has spent this season in Formula Renault 3.5, finishing sixth overall with two race wins. The British driver, formerly part of Caterham’s junior programme, tested for the team in 2013 and at Silverstone earlier this year, before joining Marussia in October.
"I'm absolutely thrilled to be getting this opportunity and am very grateful to everyone involved at Caterham F1 Team for giving it to me," Stevens said.
"I feel ready for the challenge of my F1 debut and look forward to working as part of the team in a race environment after all the work we've done together previously in the tests I've completed and back at Leafield in the sim.
"Hopefully this will be something we will be able to carry through to the 2015 season together."
Gianluca Pisanello, Caterham's head of engineering operations, added: "We know Will very well through his involvement in the Caterham Racing Academy and more importantly he has done a vast amount of time in our simulator, completing around 10,000 km, which has built his experience both of this year's car and with the engineering team that are going to Abu Dhabi.
"In addition, his 2014 test at Silverstone in our current car, where he completed over 500 km, was very successful and his race pace was very good. As a result, he was one of our best candidates for this race weekend and we are delighted to have secured his services for our return to the F1 grid.
"We in fact signed Will last week but have had to wait for confirmation of his Super licence before making our announcement."
