By BMW Sauber F1 Team
October 3 2006

In our Track Talk, BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen reveals that on the one hand he is happy with the team's performance and competitiveness in the Chinese GP. But without a number of unfortunate circumstances, a better crop of points might have been possible. Dear motor racing enthusiasts,

The race result has been a very disappointing one for us. Nick Heidfeld delivered in fine style and was on the way to securing fourth place. And then he was involved in an incident that was absolutely unnecessary. A car that had been lapped several times hampered Nick for so long that he lost a several-second lead he held over his pursuers, and then, one of them hit the rear of his car.

Robert Kubica was pushed wide in turn one after the start and dropped back to 21st position - only to battle his way back to fifth position in impressive style. When he came in for his first stop he wanted to switch to dry weather tyres, and we took the risk. However, this decision turned out to be a misjudgement. It was a result of Robert's lack of experience, however, I'm convinced that this won't happen to him again. He subsequently lost a lot of positions as he had to pit a second time for another tyre change. Unfortunately, Robert didn't score any points, but he did gather valuable experience.

Altogether, we proved to be truly competitive at Shanghai. With the performance delivered we continued the upward trend displayed in recent weeks. Now we are looking forward to Suzuka, the venue of the forthcoming Japanese Grand Prix, which will be held next weekend.

The future of Suzuka as GP venue is unsettled. Perhaps 2006 will be our final appearance at this circuit - which would be a pity as it is one of the most challenging tracks when it comes to the driving skills and is similarly popular with drivers and fans. At the same time, Suzuka also represents a major challenge for our engineers: in the ultra-fast turn 130R, the engine has to cope with lateral forces of up to 6g while the oil supply must be sustained at all times.

Sincerely
Mario Theissen