03/08/2008
NEWS STORY
A single point is the scant booty for the BMW Sauber F1 Team after the Hungarian Grand Prix. Although Robert Kubica had a good grid position (4th) he finished eighth and only just made it into the points. Nick Heidfeld's chances were very limited anyway as he was 15th on the grid. A one stop strategy elevated him to tenth.
Robert Kubica: This was a difficult race. We were very slow and I was struggling with the overall grip of the car. I had massive oversteer and could not really push. I was trying hard to keep the car on the track. Anyway, one point is better than nothing.
Nick Heidfeld: My start wasn't perfect but okay. As I had hoped, I was able to overtake three cars on the first lap. But later it became more difficult than expected to race with the heavy car. We went for a one stop strategy, so my car was almost full of fuel at the start and I also had to take care of the tyres. I couldn't match the pace of the cars in front of me. Now we have to analyse today's lack of race pace. Normally this is one of our strengths!
Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director): We were completely off the pace during the race. Neither driver was able to do the lap times we expected after the sessions on Friday and Saturday. It was the same on both tyre compounds. The reason for that is currently not clear, but we shall analyse everything. Congratulations to Heikki Kovalainen for his maiden win in F1 and, of course, Timo Glock for his strong weekend, crowned by finishing second.
Willy Rampf (Technical Director): Of course we are very disappointed with today's performance. Now we need to analyse why we were not able to match our qualifying performance during the race. We shall do this in the factories in Hinwil and Munich because, due to the testing break, we are not able to test before the next race in Valencia in three weeks.