Saturday April 4, 2009
We are unperturbed by poor practice times, says Kubica
IT WAS not all plain sailing for BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfield in the practice sessions for the Petronas Malaysian F1 Grand Prix yesterday.
The two drivers, who endured disappointing finishes at the Australian GP in Melbourne last week, focused on race preparation and tyre comparisons.
“The results don’t look good (yesterday), but in Melbourne it was similar,” Heidfield said after clocking 1:37.640 in the morning and 1:37.930 in the afternoon to finish in 18th and 20th positions respectively.
“We do have some work to do to improve the balance of the car. In the first session I was running with the KERS and in the second I didn’t use the device. Using it makes a huge difference to the car’s balance, but without it there is a loss of power,” said Kubica.
“This was the experience we wanted and why we took it out for this session. Now we will throw everything into the mix — lap times, data and my feelings — and then decide whether or not to use the KERS here.”
In Melbourne, Kubica was running strongly for a place on the podium but, with three laps to go, he collided with Williams’ Sebastian Vettel.
The lanky Pole said he had put behind him that disappointment and is looking forward to chalking up a good result for BMW Sauber, who are seen as the home team for Malaysia.
Kubica gave the team their first podium finish in Sepang last year when he finished second behind Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.
Kubica clocked 1:37.039 in the morning session and 1:37.267 in the second to finish 13th and 17th respectively.
“We concentrated totally on race preparation, and particularly on tyre comparisons,” said Kubica.
“The specifications that Bridgestone have brought to Malaysia are very different from the ones we used in Melbourne and, obviously, Sepang also has different characteristics. The track temperatures are much higher here, so it was a new situation,” said Kubica.
Kubica, who secured BMW Sauber’s first race victory in Canada last year, had seven podium finishes last season while Heidfeld had four.
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