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BMW won't change focus to 2010 car says Theissen
By BMW Sauber F1
June 9 2009
In the latest edition of "Track Talk", BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen talks about the seventh round of the season, the Turkish Grand Prix.
Dear motor racing enthusiasts,

Prior to the Turkish Grand Prix we were particularly keen on finding out how our enhanced F1.09 would deliver at Istanbul. Following the major development package we took to Barcelona, the race at Istanbul was the first we have contested with our new twin diffuser. And the new component proved to be useful.

From his tenth position on the grid, Robert displayed impressive fighting spirit and gave his very best to finish seventh. Meanwhile, Nick lost several positions and a lot of ground right at the start and therefore scoring points was impossible for him. Summarising our weekend: our car was fast enough at Istanbul to score points without having to benefit from any on-track incidents or the bad luck of other drivers. Obviously, this isn't enough to make anyone in the team complacent but it represents a basis we can use for our next enhancements.

For our engineers, the integration of a twin diffuser into the F1.09's design was anything but easy. In particular, the front of the car required numerous modifications. The goal of these measures was to optimise the airflow towards the twin diffuser, and the effort paid off. In the second knockout phase of qualifying, which is contested by everybody on a light fuel load, the step forward was particularly noticeable, with Robert and Nick finishing just four-tenths of a second behind the quickest.

There still is a lot of work waiting for us but the result secured at Istanbul was vital for the motivation of the entire squad, nonetheless. Particularly for the engineers, this weekend represented an extraordinary challenge. Due to the testing ban introduced at the beginning of this year, they only have the two 90-minute sessions on the Friday of a GP weekend in which to find a basic set-up and learn how to make optimum use of the aero-package's potential. Consequently, they had to complete an extremely extensive programme in a very short time. But they did so successfully.

I'm often asked these days, if it wouldn't be better to simply stop working on the enhancement of the F1.09 and fully focus on our 2010 challenger instead. But this doesn't represent an option for us. We won't give up on the current season - far from it! We have increased our development pace and will bring significant improvements for the car to every second or third race from now on. Improvements that will also comprise enhanced versions of the twin diffuser.

At the end of the season we want to be able to say: "We encountered a disappointing start to the season but we succeeded in turning things around and making it back to the front end of the field.

Sincerely

Mario Theissen

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