BMW Sauber

Lewis Hamilton returned to testing duties for the McLaren Mercedes squad today and promptly set the pace around the 4.428km Jerez circuit, despite an off in the morning session. The championship runner-up recorded a best time of 1:19.371s, three-tenths off Nick Heidfeld’s Tuesday best, and completed 73 laps.

David Coulthard posted the second fastest time in his Red Bull Renault and was one of a number of drivers who tested the slick tyres on offer from Bridgestone as the sole tyre supplier gears up for a possible return in 2009. Coulthard lapped within 0.050s of Hamilton’s best in his RB3 while team-mate Mark Webber was down the order in 15th position.

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BMW Sauber F1 driver Robert Kubica, took part in the first official FIA press conference ahead of the upcoming Monaco Grand Prix, round five of the 2007 Formula One season, and he revealed that he is feeling more than confident ahead of his first race here behind the wheel of an F1 contender….

Robert Kubica, fourth for the team in Spain yet again, but I’m sure you were happy with it.
Well, of course I was happy, not only because of the fourth place but because this was the first race this season without any problem, that the car was working 100 percent, and that we hadn’t made any mistake in qualifying. Everybody has worked well, so the results come. The results should have already come in the first race in Australia, but I hope that Barcelona was not our first race without problems and not the last one this season.
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The BMW Sauber F1 Team started their 2007 pre-season testing with high expectations and from the beginning of January the team completed almost 12,500km on the test track. During this time, the F1.07 showed great potential, something that was witnessed in the opening race of the season, the Australian GP, just over a week ago.

However, while this was all positive, there was a downside, and that was the problems faced with their seamless gearbox. Unfortunately, this is turning out to be the F1.07’s Achilles heel, not only in testing but also in during racing as Robert Kubica was forced to retire down under when his car became stuck in 5th gear.

Meanwhile, the biggest advantage they have is the key factor to this years approach. With the tyre war behind us and homologation of engines with a 19,000rpm restriction, the aerodynamics is the most crucial factor to their design success. The F1.07 is the child of the most impressive state of the art windtunnel at Hinwill and has the tweaks created from the Europe’s fastest machine used in industry according to the current Top-500 list, the Albert2 Supercomputer.
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