BMW-Sauber’s poor start to the season continued in qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix. Both Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld were eliminated in the first session and are unconfident of gaining anything in tomorrow’s race.
Nick Heidfeld – 17th: “Obviously this is extremely disappointing. We made a lot of changes after Thursday s free practice and even more changes after this morning s session, although this is always a bit risky shortly before qualifying. But we knew we hadn t much to lose. Actually it was rather a change for the worse than for the better, but it didn t really make a big difference anyway. It is frustrating when you go to the absolute limit and take every risk, especially here on this special circuit, and you still end up nowhere. Currently we don t know what s wrong. In Barcelona we made a step forward, but here we are way behind expectations.”
Robert Kubica – 18th: “So far we have only had difficulties. We struggled on Thursday and again this morning. I had a very bad out lap with a lot of traffic. As a result my tyres cooled down a lot. However, the overall performance of the car is not good enough. We have to realise we are bad. We have to adapt to the situation and we have to work very hard now.”
Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director): “The qualifying result reflects the problems we already faced in free practice here in Monaco. No matter which set-up or on what tyre compound none of our cars were able to achieve the necessary grip. Our data shows the tyres never reached their operating temperatures. Positions 17 and 18 are disappointing. We have a lot of work ahead of us.”
Willy Rampf (Head of Engineering): “Monaco is a special track for which you do special preparation work. But, despite several set-up changes, we never found an acceptable grip level and car balance. So far this has been a poor performance from us. The drivers tried everything and didn’t make mistakes, but our cars were simply too slow. Now we have to start to figure out the reason and begin to solve the problems before Istanbul.”
