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10 & 11th for Kubica and Heidfeld in Turkey Quali
By BMW Sauber F1
June 6 2009
In qualifying for the Turkish Grand Prix, the BMW Sauber F1 Team displayed a clearly upward trend. Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld qualified 10th and 11th respectively, but more important is the fact that the team seems to be on the way to closing the gap to the front-runners.
In the first knockout phase of qualifying, Robert and Nick both advanced to Q2. It was a thrilling first leg and the BMW Sauber F1 Team pairing had to work hard to make it to second. Robert set his personal best time of 1:27.788 minutes on his second run and finished 11th, while Nick had to go out for a third time. In the end, the German crossed the line in 1:27.795 minutes to finish 11th, right behind his team-mate. The fastest lap of Q1 (1:27.330 minutes) was set by Red Bull Racing's Sebastian Vettel.

Eliminated: Lewis Hamilton, Nelson Piquet, Sébastien Buemi, Giancarlo Fisichella and Sébastien Bourdais.

In the second knockout phase of qualifying, Robert succeeded in advancing to Q2 while Nick failed to do so. Robert and Nick both set their personal best times on their first runs and unlike the majority of their rivals they failed to improve on their second. Nonetheless, Robert's 1:27.455-minute lap was fast enough to finish ninth and advance to Q3 - while Nick's personal best time of 1:27.521 minutes unfortunately was a few fractions too slow and he had to cope with finishing 11th - just 48-thousandths of a second behind Renault's Fernando Alonso who secured 10th position. However, despite having failed to advance to Q3, Nick can be happy with his performance. At the end of the day he was just 0,5 seconds slower than the fastest man of Q2, Red Bull Racing's Sebastian Vettel (1:27.016), thus demonstrating that the Munich and Hinwil based team is closing in on the top teams, time-wise.

Eliminated: Nick Heidfeld, Kazuki Nakajima, Timo Glock, Heikki Kovalainen, Adrian Sutil.

In the top-ten shootout, Robert was unable to match the pace of the front-runners. The BMW Sauber F1 Team driver gave his very best and improved by nearly half-a-second from his first to second run but in the end he had to settle for qualifying 10th, with his 1:29.357-minute lap. Apparently the Pole contested Q3 on a heavy fuel load as he was nearly two seconds slower than in Q2, while other drivers, such as Red Bull Racing's pole-sitter Sebastian Vettel (1:28.316), lost just 1.2 seconds from Q2 to Q3.

Result: 1st Sebastian Vettel, 2nd Jenson Button, 3rd Rubens Barrichello, 4th Mark Webber, 5th Jarno Trulli, 6th Kimi Räikkönen, 7th Felipe Massa, 8th Fernando Alonso, 9th Nico Rosberg, 10th Robert Kubica.

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