Collect as many points as possible to strengthen our position - Theissen
As the Formula One Teams are arriving at Montreal for the sixth round of the 2007 Formula One Championship season, the Canadian Grand Prix, BMW Motorsport Director, Mario Theissen, hopes that his team can score more points at the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit. The BMW Sauber F1 Team is, at the moment, third in the Championship standings.
Mario Theissen"The two races in North America represent not only the next challenge for us as a team in terms of collecting more World Championship points - they also carry a lot of weight for the BMW Group. The USA was the most important single market for the BMW Group in 2006, with sales of some 314,000 BMW and MINI cars. Canada is the Group's second largest market in America after the USA. BMW, therefore, has a large fan base in the country and we also feel the strength of this popularity as a team.
Last year, we crossed the Atlantic in fifth place in the standings. In 2007 we will be arriving in Canada as the third best team. In 2006 we had to settle for having scored just two points, in the North American back-to-back races. This is something we are naturally looking to improve on, and we are aiming to collect as many points as possible on the back of our good result in Monaco, in order to further strengthen our position in the championship.
The atmosphere at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on the island in the St Lawrence River, with its paddock running along the side of the former Olympic rowing basin, is simply captivating. With the colourful hustle and bustle in the city and a race circuit on the waterfront there are certain parallels in terms of atmosphere with the Monaco Grand Prix. The type of challenge presented by the Montreal track, however, hardly could be more different. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve places totally different aerodynamic demands on the cars and pushes both the brakes in particular and the engines, to the limit. In line with the F1 regulations, our cars will continue with the same engines we used in Monaco. Sebastian Vettel will be with us in America in his capacity as test and reserve driver."
