BMW Sauber F1 Team - Australian GP - Practice
Australian Grand Prix – Practice, Friday – 31.03.06
Weather: overcast, dry, 21-23°C Air, 23-27°C Track
Melbourne (Aus). In practice for the Australian GP, BMW Sauber
F1 Team drivers Robert Kubica, Jacques Villeneuve and Nick
Heidfeld finished third, 12th and 15th respectively.
Robert Kubica:
1st Practice: 9th, 1:29.576s / 2nd Practice: 3rd, 1:27.200s
After the engine problem this morning we had a pretty good
second session. We tried some promising aero solutions and
were able to do consistent times in our long run. On my last
outing I had some traffic, otherwise I would have been even
quicker, but that is less important in a free practice session.
Jacques Villeneuve:
1st Practice: 3rd, 1:28.595s / 2nd Practice: 12th, 1:28.440s
The car seems to be competitive. One issue so far has been
warming up the tyres, which should not be a problem in qualifying
now that we can run more than one lap, or in the race, but
it will be critical to be competitive then because of the
penalty I will get for needing an engine change. That’s
a pity, because the balance of the car is very good, and I’m
really happy with its speed.
Nick Heidfeld:
1st Practice: No time / 2nd Practice: 15th, 1:29.053s
I don’t like these Friday sessions so much. This morning
I just did an installation lap, and this afternoon just one
outing with only a few laps. However, the car wasn’t
too bad and was definitely better than the lap time suggests;
I had traffic in the second sector and there were yellow flags
in the third.
Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director):
Robert had to stop the first practice prematurely due to an
engine failure after 13 laps. Our whole focus is on reliability,
but the time for development was too short. Over the winter
our test engines of identical-specification covered the required
distances without problem. However, our investigations into
the breakages units after Bahrain and Malaysia revealed that
some components have not met their required production tolerances.
Our short-term reaction has been to build new engines with
hand-selected components that best meet these rigorous requirements.
We have two of these revised engines here. One is already
installed in Nick’s car, and Jacques will get the second
in time for qualifying after Saturday’s morning practice
session. As a result he will lose 10 positions on the grid.
Willy Rampf (Technical Director Chassis):
Apart from the engine problems, I’m quite happy with
the performance that we demonstrated today. Robert did the
tyre evaluation but also concentrated on set-up work, particularly
for qualifying. Jacques focused on race preparation, while
Nick just did a baseline run.
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