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Robert 7th on the German GP grid
By BMW Sauber F1 Team July 19 2008
For the BMW Sauber F1 Team, the qualifying session at Hockenheim proved to be one of the most difficult ones in the season to date. Robert Kubica advanced to the top-ten qualifying and secured seventh position on the grid. Nick Heidfeld qualified twelfth.

Both Nick and Robert advanced to the second knockout phase of qualifying. The BMW Sauber F1 Team drivers set their personal best times in their second runs, with Nick proving to be about four tenths of a second faster than his team-mate. With a 1:15.596-minute lap, the German secured seventh position while Robert crossed the line in 1:15.985 minutes and had to settle for finishing 14th on the time sheets. Ferrari's Felipe Massa (1:14.921 minutes) proved to be the quickest in leg one.      
 
Eliminated: Kazuki Nakajima, Nelson Piquet, Rubens Barrichello, Adrian Sutil, Giancarlo Fisichella. 

In the second knockout phase of qualifying, Robert was the only BMW Sauber F1 Team driver to make it to the top-ten qualifying. In his second run, the Pole crossed the line in 1:15.109 minutes to finish sixth. Nick, however, failed to confirm the competitiveness he had displayed recently. The first split time of his final flying lap was on the same level as Robert's but then, he made a mistake, went off and returned to the pits without having achieved another improvement. In the end, he had to settle for having qualified twelfth with a personal best of 1:15.581. The fastest time, a 1:14.603-minute lap, was clocked by McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.  
 
Eliminated: Timo Glock, Nick Heidfeld, Nico Rosberg, Jenson Button, Sébastien Bourdais. 

Following everybody's first runs in the top-ten shootout, Robert held third and seemed to be on the way to again securing a position at the front of the grid. In his second run, however, the Pole didn't improve as much as several of his rivals and qualified seventh, with his 1:16.521-minute lap. Pole position was secured by Lewis Hamilton who crossed the line in 1:15.666 minutes.  
 
Result: 1st Lewis Hamilton, 2nd Felipe Massa, 3rd Heikki Kovalainen, 4th Mark Webber 5th Fernando Alonso, 6th Kimi Räikkönen, 7th Robert Kubica, 8th Mark Webber, 9th Sebastian Vettel, 10th David Coulthard. 

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