Saturday: BMW sinks in the Monte-Carlo bay

The experience in Bahrain seems to be repeating for the BMW-Sauber team. From the start of the weekend, they are completely out of the running. This morning’s last free practice session brought nothing to the team since the drivers are in 18th and 19th position, with Robert Kubica ahead of Nick Heidfeld.

This afternoon in qualifying, there was no miracle with drivers who got stuck in Q1 in places 17 and 18. There will probably be no miracle in the race either, considering the difficulties of overtaking on the urban circuit of the Principality. The new package planned for Turkey is undoubtedly highly anticipated.

Nick Heidfeld – 19th and 17th:

« Obviously, it’s an extremely disappointing result. We’ve made a lot of changes since Thursday and even more after this morning’s session, although it’s always a bit risky before qualifying. But we knew we didn’t have much to lose. In fact, it’s rather a change that made the situation worse. It’s quite frustrating when you push to the absolute limit taking all the risks, especially here on this circuit. Currently, we don’t know what is wrong. In Barcelona, we made a step forward, but here we are not up to the level. »

Robert Kubica – 18th and 18th:

« Up until now, we’ve only had difficulties. We struggled on Thursday and again this morning. I had very bad laps, with a lot of traffic. My tires cooled down. The overall performance of the car isn’t good enough. We need to realize that we’re bad. We need to adapt to the situation by starting to work seriously. »

Mario Theissen – Director of BMW Motorsport:

The result of the qualifications reflects the problems we have already encountered in free practice here in Monaco. No matter the setup or type of tires, none of our cars were able to achieve the minimum. Our data shows that the tires were never at the right temperature. Positions 17 and 18 are disappointing. We have a lot of work ahead of us.