Malaysian GP Friday P1: Eventful practice session

By BMW Sauber F1 Team
March 21 2008

In practice session one for the Malaysian Grand Prix, the BMW Sauber F1 Team drivers focused on the race preparations. At the end of the session Robert Kubica finished eighth, with his personal best time of 1:37.218 minutes. Nick took his BMW Sauber F1.08 to 11th position.

The first practice session of the Malaysian Grand Prix weekend held at Kuala Lumpur proved to be an unusually eventful one. Many drivers experienced moments in the final corner; David Coulthard (Red Bull) and Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso) went off, with Coulthard's car being seriously damaged. Mark Webber (Red Bull) suffered an engine failure. And when Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen stranded on the track, the session had to be temporarily red flagged.

The BMW Sauber F1 Team drivers, however, succeeded in avoiding getting involved in any incident. Nick Heidfeld successfully completed his scheduled programme. While working on the set-up and executing tyre evaluations, the German drove three stints and 17 laps respectively. In the first timed lap of his second stint, Nick set his personal fastest lap time of 1:37.649 minutes to finish 11th.

Robert Kubica, however, had to make do with a limited programme. In his first stint, the Pole was just on the way to setting the first timed lap when the session was red-flagged due to the Raikkonen incident. Consequently, Robert had to abort his effort.

Afterwards, the team worked on his car for quite a while but with just six more minutes to go, Robert went out again to also contribute to the preparation work. During the course of this six-lap stint, he achieved a personal best time of 1:37.218 minutes, thus moving up to eighth place.

In the second free practice session, held from 14:00 to 15:30hrs local time (06:00 to 07:30hrs GMT), the BMW Sauber F1 Team will continue its preparation work for race and qualifying.