BMW Sauber has to focus on important second sector
Changeable weather conditions are the norm at Spa: After the first 90 minutes of free practice for the Belgian Grand Prix were wet, the track was dry for the afternoon’s session, and there was even some sunshine. The BMW Sauber F1 Team managed to compress the usual Friday programme into the second session and all in all enjoyed a trouble free day.
Robert Kubica:
BMW Sauber F1.09-08 / BMW P86/9
1st Free Practice: 9th, 1:53.650 min / 2nd Free Practice: 8th, 1:47.578 min
“The conditions today were quite changeable. We started the first practice session on dry tyres, but it started to rain pretty soon as actually we were only able to do one timed lap on dry tyres at the start of the session. We took advantage of the weather conditions and did a couple of laps on full wet tyres just to see how the car behaved in case of rain. We had to squeeze quite a lot into the second free practice session, and on top of that we evaluated the tyres and worked on the set-up. It was quite difficult as we had to cram several things into a very tight programme. We even had to mix several evaluations in one run. We also have a couple of new components on the car.”
Nick Heidfeld:
BMW Sauber F1.09-07 / BMW P86/9
1st Free Practice: 14th, 2:05.614 min / 2nd Free Practice: 16th, 1:48.017 min
“It was quite okay. In the first session the rain disrupted our programme. In the afternoon we made the usual tyre compound comparisons, with a somewhat surprising result as I found the harder compound the better one.”
Willy Rampf, Head of Engineering: “In the afternoon we concentrated mostly on the tyre comparisons, after we failed to gather any relevant information on the dry tyres in the morning. We still have quite a lot of work to do on the set-up of the car, because it is particularly important for the drivers to feel confident on this demanding track. The second sector, with its quick corners, is the most important one and this is what we have to focus on. Once again the field is very close with 18 cars classified within one second.”
