By BMW Sauber F1
July 25 2009

After rather promising free practice sessions, the BMW Sauber F1 Team had a disappointing qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix with Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica out after Q1. Qualifying was overshadowed by the accident of Ferrari driver Felipe Massa. The entire BMW Sauber F1 Team hopes that he has not suffered any severe injuries.

Nick Heidfeld: BMW Sauber F1.09-06 / BMW P86/9 Qualifying 16th, 1:21.738 min in Q1 (3rd Free Practice: 2nd, 1:21.408 min)

"Today's result is a true disappointment. I was hoping to make it into the top ten. Being second fastest in free practice this morning wasn't the benchmark for what was possible in qualifying, but at least it proved overall it went quite well. Then my first outing in qualifying confirmed the performance. I was sixth fastest at that period of the session. But then it all went wrong during my second outing. I didn't have a clear track on my out lap, which was why my first flying lap wasn't good. On my second flying lap I had Kazuki Nakajima in front of me, but couldn't back off because Rubens Barrichello was behind me. Then I went wide in turn eleven and that was it. It was not even enough to get into Q2."

Robert Kubica: BMW Sauber F1.09-04 / BMW P86/9 Qualifying 19th, 1:21.901 min in Q1 (3rd Free Practice: 11th, 1:22.076 min)

"We were a little bit unlucky in qualifying. I had yellow flags on the first quick lap of my second attempt. On my second and final quick lap I had two cars in front of me. Although they moved off line they created dirty air. So I lost a lot of time as the car was sliding. This result is very disappointing. I will try my very best tomorrow but realistically this will be a very tough race."

Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director): "This was a disappointing qualifying. Looking at our performance in this morning's free practice, we had the chance to achieve top ten positions. Due to what happened on the track both drivers were unable to exploit the car's full potential. We all hope that Felipe Massa has not suffered any severe injuries in his accident."

Willy Rampf (Head of Engineering): "Obviously everybody in the team is very disappointed with this result. On his best lap, Nick was quicker than this morning before he made a mistake and lost everything. Otherwise he would have made it safely to Q2. Robert didn't have a free lap. That was it."

Quali Quotes: BMW affected by bad "luck", big disppointment

Discussion started by BMW Sauber F1 (IP Logged), 25/07/2009 15:28

BMW Sauber F1
25/07/2009 15:28

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Bogs
25/07/2009 15:37

As usual they sent the cars out last and got burned by it this time. Either its bad tire pressures, or bad strategy or just a bad car. Lets analyize the data again.

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Raid Phoenix
25/07/2009 18:45

From Nick's website:

I'd already exited from qualifying when the accident happened. I hadn't done enough to make Q2. I'd had high hopes of being in the top ten. With hindsight, after analysing the data, I know that it was a realistic aim.

and

As you know, things haven't been going that great for us this year, and we missed out today. I haven't been this annoyed in ages. At the moment though, Felipe is uppermost in my thoughts.

[www.nickheidfeld.com]

Racing against the machine!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009:07:25:18:47:24 by J-Raid.

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Gemm
25/07/2009 18:59

BMW should change their ad line from

"Sheer driving pleasure"

into

"Sheer data analysing pleasure"

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Raid Phoenix
25/07/2009 19:07

ROFL!

Racing against the machine!

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popilirol a.k.a. rolren
26/07/2009 06:21

Hold on guys. Mocking is not an action for BMW fans and It won't change anything. The car sucks, the last few minute/s running is a bad idea and it always happens. I don't understand why the heck do Nick and Robert wait till the last minutes to improve their times... why???

BMW Power

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SauberF1-Canada
26/07/2009 06:24

I noticed both cars ran quali wihout the moded front wing endplates. I guess in practice they decided it was not giving an advantage. To see them in 6th and 9th after the first Q1 stint was very promising. It's disappointing to have it all unravel at the end of Q1.

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Raid Phoenix
26/07/2009 10:06

Quote:

popilirol a.k.a. rolren
Hold on guys. Mocking is not an action for BMW fans and It won't change anything. The car sucks, the last few minute/s running is a bad idea and it always happens. I don't understand why the heck do Nick and Robert wait till the last minutes to improve their times... why???

Simply because the later, the more grip the track has, hence the faster you can go. But the downside is that you risk that all the others will do the same and will block you.

Ideally they should do 3 runs, but as tyres are limited, at least the fast teams, try to do only 2 runs. But given BMW isnt there last year, and don' have to think of keeping fresh tyres for Q3, they should go for 3 runs IMO

Racing against the machine!

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