BMW Sauber F1 Team concludes Monaco preparations

By BMW Sauber F1 Team
May 27 2006

In the third free practice session for the Monaco Grand Prix, the BMW Sauber F1 Team drivers, Nick Heidfeld and Jacques Villeneuve, experienced no problems whatsoever and succeeded in completing their scheduled preparation programme for the remainder of the weekend.

The engineers had succeeded in eliminating the electronics problem that had hampered test and reserve driver Robert Kubica in Thursday's free practice sessions. Both Nick and Jacques completed four stints, with the Jacques being the busier of the pairing by lapping the 3.340-kilometre circuit 27 times while his team-mate did a total 20 laps.

Nick and Jacques focused on further improving the BMW Sauber F1.06's set-up. At the end of the 60-minute session, Nick (1:15.591 minutes) finished 13th, with Jacques (1:16.285 minutes) taking 18th position on the timesheets.

The quickest driver of the session was Renault's reigning World Champion, Fernando Alonso (1:13.823 minutes), followed by Michael Schumacher and Giancarlo Fisichella.

Now the BMW Sauber F1 Team is focussing on the qualifying session (from 14:00hrs CEST, 13:00hrs BST). As there are virtually no overtaking opportunities at the "Circuit de la Principauté", a promising starting position will be vital for scoring a good race result.