Solid race for Heidfeld awards him with 2 points.Kubica 11th

By BMW Sauber F1
May 10 2009

With an impressive and truly mature performance, Nick Heidfeld secured a fine seventh place in the Spanish Grand Prix, adding another two championship points to his and the BMW Sauber F1 Team's tallies. Robert Kubica, however, had to settle for finishing 11th and leaving Barcelona empty-handed.

In a rather uneventful race - apart from a third-corner incident that forced Jarno Trulli (Toyota), Sebastian Buemi (Toro Rosso), Sébastien Bourdais (Toro Rosso) and Adrian Sutil (Force India) into early retirement - Nick demonstrated the BMW Sauber F1 Team's upward trend by securing a fine seventh place, thus scoring two World Championship points for the Munich and Hinwil based squad.

The German laid the foundation stone for his successful race by gaining four positions right at the start, leaping from thirteenth up to ninth. Robert, however, lost three positions and dropped back to thirteenth. On a racetrack such as the 'Circuit de Catalunya', it was clear that this loss of positions would cost him dearly as overtaking is virtually impossible here.

Toyota's Jarno Trulli went off approaching turn three and when he skidded back on to the track it resulted in a collision that meant the end of the race for the Italian, Buemi, Bourdais and Sutil.

After a safety car period, the race was restarted on lap six and from this point in time Nick and Robert didn't encounter any problems. Nonetheless, Robert, who had started the race on a lighter fuel load than his team-mate, had no chance of making up the lost ground and was unable to score points, having to settle for finishing the race in 11th.

For Nick, however, things went clearly better. In the first third of the race, he was able to stay ahead of McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, despite intense pressure. Then, following the first set of pit stops, the German passed Toyota's Timo Glock, who was previously placed eighth, while clever pit-stop strategy, and a fine drive, helped him to gain another position following his second stop. When Nick pitted for the first time on lap 32, the BMW Sauber F1 Team refuelled his car with more fuel than his direct rivals in the battle for seventh position and despite racing with a heavier car Nick succeeded in gaining the vital seconds needed.

On the one hand, he now proved to be clearly quicker than Hamilton who had pitted at the same time, while on the other he reduced the gap to seventh-placed driver Nico Rosberg lap after lap. When the Williams driver pitted on lap 50, Nick was just three seconds behind his compatriot. Nick clocked an impressively fast time on his final lap on the softs, while Rosberg - on a heavier fuel load and the hard compound - lost the crucial seconds. Therefore, when Nick pitted on lap 51, he rejoined the race 2.4 seconds ahead of Rosberg in seventh.

From this point in time, Nick focused on avoiding any unnecessary risks and securing seventh position, as the gap to Renault's sixth-placed Fernando Alonso was just too big. Nonetheless, the BMW Sauber F1 Team driver actually came close to finishing sixth as Ferrari's Felipe Massa had to save fuel in the final laps and slowed down massively - but eventually crossed the line 1.4 seconds ahead of Nick.

The Spanish Grand Prix demonstrated that the BMW Sauber F1 Team is on the right path. Nick and Robert both demonstrated that the BMW Sauber F1.09 is clearly more competitive than in the previous race in Bahrain, and should the aerodynamicists and engineers keep on enhancing the car at the same rate as they have done in recent weeks, the team may hope for scoring more points in the Monaco GP in a fortnight.