The first round of practice race for the upcoming 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix was dominated by BMW Sauber's Kobert Kubica. The Polish driver took his BMW Sauber F1.07 to the finished and clocked in at 1:22.390. He is the fasted driver during the morning practice. However, during the afternoon, Kubica was quite unlucky because of the weather. As a result, he finished on the tenth sheet. By the way, Robert Kubica made his F1 debut at the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix.
Robert Kubica commented: "The day was quite good. We did a lot of laps to see how the tyres performed. Here in Hungary we use the softest tyre compound of the season, just like in Monaco. Therefore, we completed a lot of long runs to see how the soft tyres behave over the distance. We now have a lot of data that we are going to analyse for tomorrow. So far so good. The track conditions were not ideal today. Off the line it is quite dirty, but this situation is the same for everybody."
Meanwhile, Kubica's teammate Nick Heidfeld was on the third place during the morning practice race, but other drivers successfully overtook him and went down in the sixth place after the race. During the afternoon practice race, Heidfeld impressively managed to obtain the fifth place and clocked in at 1:21.517 aboard his No. 9 BMW Sauber F1.07 equipped with BMW cold air intake.
After the practice race, Heidfeld said: "For us the sessions went well. We had no technical problems and got all the work done. But it is very difficult to get the tyres to work properly. Graining is an issue. As far as I could see, other drivers have the same problem. I think the order between the top teams remains the same here. Compared to last year's F1.06, this year's car obviously performs better on high downforce circuits like Monaco or Budapest."
So far, there are no recorded technical problems during the race, and BMW is hoping that the F1.07 race cars can also perform well during the actual race in Hungaroring.
Willy Rampf Technical Director of BMW Sauber team concluded:
"We completed our programme without any problems. Only the short shower in the afternoon interrupted this slightly. Anyway, we collected enough data, which we are going to analyse now. We concentrated on race preparation today. The decision for the tyre choice requires more data. There is still a small possibility of rain for Saturday and Sunday, so we have to take this into account and prepare accordingly."
Watch out for the upcoming 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix and see if BMW drivers can perform well at the race.
Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_198646_31.html

