No running for BMW in the rain

It was a trouble free day for the BMW Sauber F1 Team at the Interlagos track on the first day of free practice for the Brazilian Grand Prix. In the morning, when the track was wet, the drivers did just one installation lap each as the weather forecast predicted dry weather for the rest of the weekend. In the afternoon they were proved right and at the end of the day Robert Kubica was sixth quickest and Nick Heidfeld tenth.

Robert Kubica: BMW Sauber F1.07-03/BMW P86/7 (T-car F1.07.04) 1st Practice: No timed lap
2nd Practice: 6th, 1.13.587 min “This morning we didn’t run because of the weather. Our predictions said there would be no rain and for this afternoon we were hoping that the track would dry out. This is what it did and at the end it was nearly completely dry. We did quite a lot of tyre evaluation as they are pretty soft and there is a lot of graining, and it is very difficult to do something against graining. They have done a very good job on re-surfacing the track. There are no bumps at all, and the track is very smooth. Normally when you put new tarmac down the bumps stay, but that is not the case here. It has made it easier to drive on, as the bumps were upsetting the balance of the car, but as before it is a nice track to drive on.”

Nick Heidfeld: BMW Sauber F1.07-08/BMW P86/7 1st Practice: No timed lap
2nd Practice: 10th, 1.13.785 min “In the afternoon I did many laps, 44 in total, and the car felt pretty good. We did a lot of comparisons and now have a good amount of information about the tyres. The softer compound tends to grain. The new tarmac is a clear improvement.”

Willy Rampf, Technical Director “Because we don’t expect rain on Saturday or Sunday, we didn’t do any running this morning as it didn’t make any sense to send the cars out. In the second session we did the tyre evaluation with both cars. Now we will look into the data to make our tyre choice for qualifying and the race. Because of the changing track conditions the lap times were improving all the time, and this makes the data comparison very interesting. We had no technical problems.”