Last year, Caterham managed to break away from fellow new teams Marussia and HRT.
In 2012, the team are striving to make further progress and become a consistent player in the midfield.
With the introduction of KERS to their new CT01 racecar, Kovalainen believes that Caterham will be in a strong position to challenge the likes of Williams and Toro Rosso next season.
The Finn said: "I feel one hundred per cent ready to go and ready for even better performances this season.
"As a team we want to move into the midfield. We've set the target that we want to always be qualifying in Q2 and challenging the teams directly above us - whether that's Williams or whoever it is. It's really, really close and we want to be in that group."
Kovalainen added of the new KERS: "It's something that will really enable us to race those around us, especially at the race starts. In terms of lap times, it should be worth around four tenths (of a second)."
hit wonder :-)