BMW Sauber F1 Team
2009 British Grand Prix
Qualifying (Results)
20 June 2009

Weather: dry and overcast, 13-16°C Air, 15-26°C Track

The BMW Sauber F1 Team drivers Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld qualified only 12th and 15th for the British Grand Prix in Silverstone. Results

Robert Kubica:
BMW Sauber F1.09-03 / BMW P86/9
Qualifying 12th, 1:19.308 min in Q2 (3rd Free Practice: 20th, 1:21.039 min)
“This has been a very difficult weekend so far. Yesterday, I had technical problems in both sessions and then again this morning. During the three free practice sessions I had maybe ten laps without any problems, which was simply not enough to do the necessary work. No surprise that the set-up of the car was not very good in qualifying. P12 was the maximum I could achieve under the circumstances.”

Nick Heidfeld:
BMW Sauber F1.09-06 / BMW P86/9
Qualifying 15th, 1:19.448 min in Q2 (3rd Free Practice: 18th, 1:20.696 min)
“Being 15th on the grid is obviously disappointing, although I have to admit I didn’t have too high expectations before we came here. We brought a new front wing to this race, but other teams apparently have bigger updates. It will be difficult to collect points from where we are starting – that is if it stays dry, which is something you never can rely on here in Silverstone. However, for the next races we have more new parts, so we will keep working and never give up.”

Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director):
“Obviously we are not satisfied with the qualifying result. Our goal was to get into the top 10. It did not help Robert that he has had technical problems in every free practice session, and therefore was not able to do proper set-up work.”

Willy Rampf (Head of Engineering):
“So far it has been a very difficult weekend for us, and that continued in qualifying. With starting positions 12 and 15 we are not satisfied. A main problem was getting the ideal tyre temperatures in these cold conditions. Even with our new aero-update that did not work out.”

Qualifying Results