By BMW Sauber F1 Team
July 20 2007

In the first free practice session for the European GP, both BMW Sauber F1 Team drivers, Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica, delivered in fine style. The German finished fourth on the time sheets and his Polish team-mate secured fifth place. . It's a well-known fact that the BMW Sauber F1 Team focuses on the setup work and the tyre evaluations, on the Fridays of a GP weekend, instead of trying to impress with competitive lap times. Still, both Nick and Robert could match the pace of the McLarens and the Ferraris throughout the session.

For the major part of the session, Nick and Robert held second and third positions on the time sheets, just fractions behind McLaren's Lewis Hamilton. Furthermore, the BMW Sauber F1 Team drivers proved to be the clearly busiest of the top six, with Nick completing four stints and 35 laps respectively while Robert completed just one lap less, during the course of his four stints.

At the end of the day, the drivers of the Munich and Hinwil based team were defeated just by the two McLarens and one Ferrari. Nick set his personal fastest lap time of 1:32.975 minutes on the first fast lap of his final stint - on the soft compound - and finished fourth. While Robert clocked his fastest lap time of 1:33.205 minutes as early as on the first flying lap of his third stint, thus finishing fifth, right behind his team-mate.

The fastest lap time of the session was set by McLaren's Lewis Hamilton who lapped the Nürburgring's 5.148-kilometre GP circuit in 1:32.515 minutes.

In the second free practice session starting at 14.00hrs CEST (13.00hrs BST), the BMW Sauber F1 Team will continue its preparations for the remainder of the weekend.