BMW Race Reactions: we were too slow here, too many problems
By BMW Sauber F1
May 24 2009
The BMW Sauber F1 Team leaves Monaco empty handed. Nick Heidfeld finished 11th, while his team mate, Robert Kubica, retired after 29 laps because of brake problems.
Nick Heidfeld: "I tried to make up positions at the start and on the
first lap, but this time it just didn't work out. It is too narrow
here. I was stuck behind Adrian (Sutil) for quite a while. Apparently
he had problems with his tyres, and once I even touched the rear of his
car. In turn one Lewis (Hamilton) hit me, but I was happy I was able to
continue. I was on a one stop strategy, and with the softer compound on
the second stint I had degradation. We gave everything today but we
were too slow here."
Robert Kubica: "We had difficulties over the entire weekend. I had a
problem at the start and fell to the back of the grid. Then I had a
puncture on my rear right tyre. After the necessary pit stop I was
lapping well with a very heavy car - taking the car's potential into
account. In the end I had to retire as I had brake problems."
Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director): "A better result was not
possible for us here this weekend. At no point was our car competitive.
No points are the result. We have to improve our speed of development
significantly in order to match our own expectations. Robert had a
damaged tyre on lap two and later on suffered from brake problems,
which caused him to retire. Nick was the first driver to change to the
softer tyre compound after a long first stint. Nobody else was on
Option tyres for such a long period, and they degraded dramatically
before recovering a little towards the end of the race."
Willy Rampf (Head of Engineering): "After the free practice and
qualifying sessions it was clear that today's race would be difficult.
Nick's race ran without any special incidents. In the closing laps he
was able to defend his position against Lewis (Hamilton) with worn out
soft tyres. Robert had a flat tyre early in the race. Surprisingly, he
was then able to do good lap times with a very heavy car. We had to
bring his car back to the pits early due to a brake problem. Overall,
this was a disappointing weekend. It is now our goal to be competitive
again in Istanbul. A lot of work lies ahead of us."
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Quote:We have to improve our speed of development significantly in order to match our own expectations.
Finally clear talking about the problems from Mario. Hopefully they'll work even harder and make some changes to prevent this situation to happen again.
PS: Webber reporter of brake pedal going to loose, yet on that moment he set his fast lap, just recalled that lol
Racing against the machine!
Rewminds me once I asked a friend, after a karting race, how had it gone and congratulated him for being aceptably close to our pace despite his first track taste and he told me "well, I didn't use the brakes at all!". Man, I was ROFL so much!
Brakes, what is that? who cares about them? ha!
Seriously, they better come up with with a decent and extensive package in Turkey...
Racing against the machine!
Hope there is new staff recruitment, re-structuration and re-shuffle within the Hinwil base at least, extra hours, motivation rewards, etc
PS. The team is currently looking for:
-CATIA and process engineer
-Calculation engineer
Racing against the machine!