07/06/2008
NEWS STORY
Robert Kubica will start from the front row of the grid for the Canadian Grand Prix. The BMW Sauber F1 Team driver qualified second in Montreal. His team mate, Nick Heidfeld, also qualified his F1.08 safely in the top ten and was eighth.
Robert Kubica: It was a very difficult qualifying with the track breaking up in some corners, which is a disaster. It was easy to make mistakes with these conditions. When you missed the racing line by just ten or 20 centimetres you were on the marbles with very low grip. However, I'm very happy with second. Certainly it will be a tough race tomorrow on this track. Unfortunately I shall not be starting on the clean side. McLaren particularly looks very strong and I shall also have pressure from the Ferrari, but we have to see who is on which strategy.
Nick Heidfeld: It was obviously better than two weeks ago. In Q2 I was just one tenth of a second behind Robert, but I'm not happy with my lap times in Q3. It is a start, but I still have a lot of work to do. Today it was extremely difficult to choose between the tyre compounds. First I thought the harder Prime would be quicker, but in the end I went for the softer Options. Normally the track conditions get better and better during qualifying, but here they became worse. We had an awful lot of marbles on the track. This has always been an issue here, but normally this has been in the race and not in Qualifying.
Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director): Starting from the front row is an excellent result for Robert and our team. The result was achieved under very difficult track conditions. Gusty winds, a constantly changing tyre performance and a track that was getting slower meant it was only for Robert that everything was perfect for the last run. Nick also had to fight the track conditions. It was a good run that got him into Q3. It will only be at his first pit stop tomorrow when we shall see what he can do from eighth.
Willy Rampf (Technical Director): This was excellent from Robert. We expected to be major players on this track, however, Robert's second place surprised us. Nick was strong in the second part of qualifying, but even from eighth he could still have a good result. Today, the big challenge was to choose the right tyre compound for each session. In addition, there was more wind which affected the balance of the car. We are looking forward to the race and a good result.