By BMW Sauber F1 Team
April 14 2007

In qualifying for the Bahrain GP, Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica consolidated the BMW Sauber F1 Team's position as "third power". Nick finished fifth, thus equalling his Malaysian GP qualifying result, with Robert securing sixth position.
As was the case in the previous two qualifying sessions of the 2007 season, both Robert and Nick easily qualified for the second knockout phase of qualifying. The BMW Sauber F1 Team pairing went out some eight minutes into the session. Nick completed just one flying lap and crossed the line in 1:33.154 minutes to finish sixth, with Robert setting two timed laps and finishing eighth, with a personal fastest lap time of 1:33.348 minutes. The fastest time of 1:32.443 minutes was set by Ferrari's Felipe Massa.

Eliminated: Takuma Sato, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Scott Speed, Adrian Sutil, David Coulthard, Christijan Albers.

Again, neither Nick nor Robert experienced any problems whatsoever when it came to advancing to the top-ten shootout. This time, Nick went out earlier than his team-mate - just five minutes into the session - and completed two timed laps. On his second stint, he crossed the line in 1:32.134 minutes to finish fourth. Robert went out four minutes later and secured sixth position thanks to a 1:32.292-minute lap. Massa once again topped the timesheets with a best time of 1:31.359 minutes.

Eliminated: Alexander Wurz, Heikki Kovalainen, Anthony Davidson, Ralf Schumacher, Rubens Barrichello, Jenson Button.

In the top-ten shootout, Nick and Robert once again delivered a strong performance. Both BMW Sauber F1 Team drivers completed two flying laps on fresh sets of tyres - the first on the harder compound, the second on the softer option - and both set their personal fastest lap times in their second assaults. In the end, Nick secured fifth position on the grid with 1:33.404 minutes. For the first time this season, he will share third row of the grid with Robert who qualified sixth, with his 1:33.710-minute lap. Pole position was clinched by Massa, whose best lap was clocked at 1:32.652 minutes.

Result: 1st Felipe Massa 2nd Lewis Hamilton, 3rd Kimi Räikkönen, 4th Fernando Alonso, 5th Nick Heidfeld, 6th Robert Kubica, 7th Giancarlo Fisichella, 8th Mark Webber, 9th Jarno Trulli, 10th Nico Rosberg.