BMW Sauber far behind at Budapest
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.”
