Formula One news

BMW pleased with season's progress

The BMW Sauber F1 Team is celebrating taking fifth place in the constructors' world championship after the final race of the team's first season in Sao Paulo. However, neither driver was able to add to the overall points tally with Robert Kubica finishing ninth and Nick Heidfeld crashing into the barriers with six laps to go.

Robert Kubica: "The race started okay and I overtook Nick on the first lap, but after ten laps we didn't have any more speed. I was driving as hard as I could and pushing but we we're just too slow."

Nick Heidfeld: "It was a busy final race and I would have liked a better result for myself. My start was okay, but in the first corner it was extremely tight as Michael was on the inside and Ralf on my right side, but this situation worked out fine. Then in the fourth corner it was close between me and Robert and I felt something had happened to my front wing, but my speed was okay although I lost some positions and got stuck behind one stopper Pedro de la Rosa. After my first stop I got back on the track behind Vitantonio Liuzzi and tried to overtake him, but unfortunately we touched. With the damaged car I lost a lot of downforce, but the lap times were still okay. I then made two mistakes. In the first corner I went straight on and then slid off because I got on the marbles when I let Felipe Massa pass. At the end I think something broke on the car, which may have been caused by the earlier collision, and I crashed."

Mario Thiessen positively reflected on the season as a whole.

"Although missing scoring points by a small margin, in the last race in Sao Paulo we
achieved our goals and claimed fifth place in the constructors' championship. All in all with the BMW Sauber F1 Team we achieved more than we could have expected in our debut year. We made it into the points 15 times and even scored two podium finishes. This means we are clearly ahead of our own targets. What makes me even happier is that during the season our team improved in comparison to our competitors."

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