Practice 3: 9 and 10th for Kubica and Heidfeld

By BMW Sauber F1
March 28 2009

On Saturday morning, the BMW Sauber F1 Team experienced another trouble-free practice session in Melbourne. Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld encountered no problems whatsoever and finished the session ninth and tenth respectively.

For the major part of the session, Robert and Nick continued their preparation work for the remainder of the weekend, focussing on finding the perfect set-up for the race and qualifying on the harder of the two tyre compounds available, the medium compound.

Only in the final five minutes, were the BMW Sauber F1.09 cars shod with the super softs to allow Robert and Nick the opportunity to set competitive times.

Nick was the first to go out and posted a 1:26.555 minute lap, thus finishing tenth, at the wheel of his KERS-equipped car. Moments later, Robert also crossed the line and proved to be fractions of a second quicker by setting a personal best time of 1:26.514 minutes, earning him ninth on the timesheets.

The fastest lap time of the session (1:25.808 minutes) was once again set by Williams' Nico Rosberg. For a clearer picture of the true balance of power in Australia, however, we will have to wait for the qualifying session starting at 17:00hrs local time (06:00hrs GMT).