Canada GP Practice 1: Fuel leak hits Kubica

By BMW Sauber F1 Team
June 8 2007

In the first free practice session for the Canadian Grand Prix, all the preparation work for the BMW Sauber F1 Team had to be carried out by Nick Heidfeld. His team-mate, Robert Kubica, suffered a fuel leak on the first lap of his first stint. .

Session one turned out to be extremely short for Robert. Having completed his installation lap in the very first minute of the session, he went out for his first stint at 11.45hrs local time (15.45hrs BST) but suffered a fuel leak and was forced to return to the pits. Repairs took a lot of time and consequently he had no chance of rejoining the action.

Therefore, all the setup work and tyre evaluations due to be carried out in the first session had to be executed by Nick Heidfeld. The German completed three stints comprising 20 laps on the harder of the two compounds available (soft and supersoft). He improved consistently to set a personal fastest lap time of 1:18.634 minutes on the first flying lap of his final stint.

For the major part of the session, Nick held fifth position behind the Ferraris and the McLarens and it was only in the closing stages that he was passed by Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber (on supersoft) and Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella, thus having to settle for seventh position.

The fastest lap of the session was set by McLaren's Fernando Alonso.

In the second free practice session, held from 14.00 to 15.30hrs local time (19.00 to 20.30hrs BST), both Nick and Robert will continue the preparations for the remainder of the weekend.