Malaysian GP Friday P2: BMW still sandbagging?

By BMW Sauber F1 Team
March 21 2008

In the second practice session for the Malaysian Grand Prix, the BMW Sauber F1 Team drivers successfully continued their preparations for the remainder of the weekend. Robert Kubica finished eighth while Nick Heidfeld took 13th position on the timesheets.

 

As usual in the Friday sessions of a GP weekend, the BMW Sauber F1 Team focused on set-up work and tyre evaluations for the race. And in order to do so, the two drivers opted for different strategies.

In the sweltering Malaysian heat, with temperatures reaching 32° C and humidity of 74 percent, Robert, the quicker of the pairing, completed a total of six stints comprising 33 laps. With one of these stints being an eight-lap long-run, the others were clearly shorter. In the closing stages of the session, the Pole used mediums, the softer of the two tyre compounds available, to clock a personal fastest lap time of 1:36.671 minutes and thereby finishing eighth.

At the same time, Nick completed only five stints, with two of them being ten-lap runs. The German also set his personal best time of 1:37.106 minutes on mediums but did so on the first lap of his second run, with more than 30 minutes remaining.

In the third free practice session, held on Saturday morning at 11:00hrs local time (03:00hrs GMT), the Munich and Hinwil based squad will complete its preparations for qualifying and the race.