Nick Heidfeld has said that he ‘can’t say’ where BMW Sauber stands relative to its rivals at the present time. The German, who helped the Hinwil-based squad conclude a week of testing in Jerez yesterday, cited the variables of fuel load and settings during testing as reasons why overall pace is difficult to gauge.
‘Unfortunately, I can’t say where this puts us in comparison with our rivals – everybody keeps their cards close to their chests in testing. You never know exactly what kind of programme the other teams are running, let alone how much fuel they have on board,” Heidfeld told BMW Sauber’s press office.
It is tempting for everyone involved in the sport to read things into testing times, but Heidfeld said the only time the world would know the true state of affairs was in Australia on 29 March.
”I’ll be happy when all the guessing games come to an end in Melbourne,” he added.
The BMW Sauber F1.09 has performed reasonably well in testing, but has been prone to reliability concerns. Heidfeld shrugged off the issues, and said that he was feeling optimistic about the year ahead.
”The testing we’ve conducted so far has been very positive. The F1.09 is already driving pretty well for a completely newly developed car and it reacts well to changes in set-up. We can still improve on reliability but at no time have we been confronted by unsolvable problems and we have racked up more miles than several of our rivals.”
Credit – BMW Sauber.
