Caterham Group has confirmed that work has started at the Leafield Technical Centre in Oxfordshire, the new base for the motorsport, automotive and technology business that comprises Caterham F1 Team, Caterham Racing (GP2), Caterham Cars, Caterham Composites and CTI (Caterham Technology and Innovation).

A complete renovation and refurbishment of Caterham Group's new home, in the middle of what is known as 'Motorsport Valley', has now started and the first arm of the business to move into Leafield will be Caterham F1 Team which will return to Oxfordshire after the Hungarian Grand Prix in late July.

It is less than three years since the first building blocks of what has now become Caterham Group were put in place by Tony Fernandes and his fellow shareholders when they were granted entry to the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship in September 2009. With work now starting at Leafield Tony Fernandes is excited to see how far his dream has come in under 36 months: "It is hard to believe that it is less than three years since we first walked into the empty factory in Hingham where we started the F1 team back in 2009. At that point we had four full-time employees, a couple of notepads and a rather daunting job list that many people said was utterly unachievable. While the F1 team was building up fast, we also had a plan to lay the foundations for an automotive and technology focused group of businesses that would allow us to compete with some of the most famous motorsport and car brands on and off track, through innovation, passion and value. We wanted to support the road and racing operations with a range of associated companies that would specialise in the high-tech materials that are so prevalent in F1, allowing us to tap into a creative and technical pool of talent that are usually focused on winning on track or improving handling on the road, applying their expertise, ideas and knowledge to any industry that could benefit from world-class thinking.

"We have had a couple of well documented issues along the way, but we are now in the middle of 2012, 34 months since work started on our first F1 car and I think we have reached the most important point in our development so far. Caterham Group is now the embodiment of all the ideas and dreams we had in 2009 and now, with Leafield open for business, we have put in place the next vital stage for the continuing development of all the Caterham Group businesses.

"The F1 and GP2 teams will be first in place in Leafield, and Caterham Cars will be moving its HQ to Leafield in due course. Caterham Composites will remain in Norfolk and CTI will retain its offices in Germany whilst expanding production into the Hingham site to join Caterham Composites at the base we have owned since '09. These are important moves, not only for the incredible staff we have in place in each of our businesses, but also for the message it sends to our partners, suppliers, local communities and our competition. We are now a multi-faceted group of world-leading companies existing in harmony within a clear group structure that provides enormous room for growth. Under the Leafield HQ we have another major site fully operational in Hingham and through the nature of our work and the people we employ, we have a truly global outlook.