BMW is on schedule - Riedl

The BMW Sauber F1 Team will present its challenger for the 2009 season on 20th January, and Walter Riedl is happy with the development work completed during the winter break. "We are on schedule," says the Managing Director of BMW Sauber AG. "The component production during the winter break went exactly to plan. Everything is now focused on 20th January, the roll-out of our 2009 car in Valencia."

From mid January, the first chassis for the BMW Sauber F1.09 will be assembled in Hinwil. "We have set aside five full days for this purpose," Riedl explains. "It will only take a matter of hours to completely assemble a new car during the season." For comparison: the team needs about eight hours after a race to dismantle a car, check and replace individual components, and put the car back together again.

Individual components of the new BMW Sauber F1.09, such as the car's gearbox, have been in production for months already. Riedl says: "We started with this as early as last summer. The latest components to have been produced are, for example, the front wing end plates. The regulations for these were only finalised midway through December."