Formula One news

Another difficult afternoon for BMW

With both cars eliminated from Q1 on Saturday, the Hungarian Grand Prix always did promise to be a tough one for the BMW team. Having started fifteenth and eighteenth on the grid in the absence of Felipe Massa, Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica came home in respective eleventh and thirteenth positions on Sunday.

With the Pole having moved ahead of his German team-mate in the first laps of the race, Heidfeld eventually moved back in front through pit-stops. "From 15th on the grid, finishing 11th was the best I could achieve today," Nick admitted. "Over the first few metres my start was good and I immediately made up some places but then, later on the first lap, I lost them again.

13th placed Kubica was the last man not to be lapped

"First somebody hit me from behind and later I went wide at Turn 11.It took a while before I was able to overtake Sébastien Buemi and after that I got stuck in traffic again - that's why we decided to make my first pit-stop a couple of laps earlier than planned. This is, of course, a disadvantage, but due to the traffic situation it still paid off. Despite the rather heavy car, the pace wasn't too bad; overall, looking at the situation we found ourselves in, I would say the car has been quicker this weekend and it is a shame we didn't convert this progress into points."

"I had a good start and a good first lap and managed to make up a lot of positions," Kubica explained. "At least that is something positive. Unfortunately, I had massive understeer and a lot of front tyre wear for the entire race; about ten laps into each stint my front tyres degraded a lot and I was very slow."

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