Formula One news

Williams twelfth and fifteenth

On a typical hot summer day, in the Hungaroring basin, the BMW WilliamsF1 Team drivers completed their working programme. Nick Heidfeld finished the day twelfth fastest while Webber was fifteenth. 

"I've enjoyed myself today because this is a circuit I always like," Heidfeld said. "Obviously temperatures are very high, but that's usual here and I think our tyres should be quite strong in these hot conditions as in the past here. Otherwise we managed to complete our entire programme without any problems. I tried a variety of different set-up options and from our tyre work I think we will have a good tyre choice for tomorrow."

Webber commented, "We have plenty of work to do as I am not happy with the balance of my car. We will work from here to try to improve before tomorrow, so we can improve our long runs as they don't look good enough at the moment."

Technical director Sam Michael added, "We have had a productive day today as we went through our entire programme, checking tyres, cooling and brakes for the race. It looks like it will be very hot on Sunday. The tyre choice will be difficult because both compounds have their strengths. We will work through the data tonight with Michelin as well as working on the race set-up. We have some new aero parts on the car and they are all working well." 

BMW motorsport director Mario Theissen concluded, "The temperatures today gave us a taste of what to expect this weekend in terms of heat, and of what we are expecting at the next race in Istanbul. Both the new engines we have fitted today in the cars are well prepared for these two hot races. Engine temperatures were today still under the heat limits and the team didn't experience any problems at all during Free Practice. As far as we can tell from today's practice, our competitiveness is similar to performance levels in Hockenheim, which is as we expected, after a three-day gap."

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