Heidfeld disappointed despite two points

By BMW Sauber F1 Team
October 2 2006

Until just a few metres before the finish line, Nick Heidfeld held fourth position at Shanghai. But at the end of the day he had to settle for seventh, after the manoeuvres of a couple of lapped drivers cost him valuable World Championship points.

The extremely difficult track conditions in China couldn't prevent Nick from delivering one of his best performance of the 2006 season. Despite the wet track, the BMW Sauber F1 Team driver seemed to be on the way to adding another five points to his tally. But then, with the race virtually over, Nick was hampered by several drivers he had already lapped at least once during the race.

"Christijan Albers didn't let me pass," explains Nick. "He stayed on the dry line all the way down the back straight, then backed off just 200-300 metres before the braking point to go on the wet line and then he accelerated again, so I could not get past."

As Nick had to reduce his pace, due to the slower car of Albers driving in front of him, soon Takuma Sato - who had also been lapped by the German - appeared behind Nick and made his life even more difficult.

Nick says: "Despite Sato being two laps behind, he starts fighting me. And despite being shown the blue flags, he passes me, and not cleanly because we nearly crashed. Then for whatever reason, he held me up."

All this resulted in a collision with Honda's Rubens Barrichello in the final corner of the race - and Nick lost three positions before he could get going again to cross the finish line. "Without Barrichello crashing into me I think I could still have finished fourth, even though Button was alongside me." After the race, the race control confirmed that the German's point of view was correct and disqualified Sato, while the incident with Rubens Barrichello was assessed as a race incident by the stewards.