Exhaust problem for Heidfeld
The first day of practice for the 2007 F1 season began under changing weather conditions. After rain during the night and in the early morning the Albert Park track was wet. For the first of the two 90 minute test sessions Nick Heidfeld shared duties with the team’s test and reserve driver, Sebastian Vettel, for whom the circuit was new territory. In the afternoon Robert Kubica joined Nick and at the end of the two sessions all the drivers felt this was a positive start to the first race of the season.
Nick Heidfeld: BMW Sauber F1.07-05 / BMW P86/7 1. Training: 17., 1.37,249 min / 2. Training: 5., 1.27,970 min “I’m happy so far with the first day of the 2007 season. It looks like we have been able to confirm the positive impressions we had from our testing. In the morning the car was good in the rain, while in the afternoon session we almost completed our programme and the lap times were also okay. I lost some time in the garage due to an exhaust problem, but this wasn’t too bad.”
Robert Kubica: BMW Sauber F1.07-04 / BMW P86/7 2. Training: 9., 1.28,281 min “I didn’t run this morning, which was not a problem as it was wet, but the car was quite good at the beginning of the afternoon session. It is looking quite okay even though we have a few issues to resolve. We now have to analyse everything, improve the set up and I am sure we will be okay. I think we have a good chance for points here and so it will be a good start to the season."
Sebastian Vettel: BMW Sauber F1.07-03 / BMW P86/7 1. Training: 3., 1.30,857 min “At the beginning of the session the conditions were extremely difficult. The entire track was very wet when I left the garage in the morning and, as Albert Park is not a permanent race track, it has a lot of white lines which are extremely slippery in the wet. The track dried out surprisingly quickly, but due to the changing conditions we could not collect as much information as we would have liked. But at least we showed we were pretty quick under wet conditions.”
Willy Rampf, Technical Director “Finally the 2007 season has officially started. We are pleased with the first day of practice. Our focus was on the tyre comparison and because of this we did several short and long runs. Now we know what we have to concentrate on in the third practice on Saturday. The results we had from running with the Bridgestone tyres during the winter testing are now being confirmed here. Due to the weather conditions and some interruptions we didn’t complete a hundred percent the scheduled programme.”
