It was a case of business as usual for the BMW Sauber team on the first day of the Hungarian Grand Prix: Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica completed their normal race preparations in Budapest. After difficulties with the car’s balance at the start of practice, there was progress at the end of the second 90 minute session where they finished in seventh and eighth positions.

Nick Heidfeld"In the beginning it wasn’t good at all. I guess many drivers had trouble with graining, so I don’t think I was the only one. But I found the balance of my car really poor. We made several changes during both sessions, but they didn’t lead to the progress we wanted. For the very last outing we then made major changes and luckily this proved to be a step in the right direction. I’m happy we tried this because we now know a lot more."

Robert Kubica"We did the usual Friday programme.  We evaluated the tyre compounds and worked on the car’s set-up in order to find out how the car and the tyres behave on this track. We will now analyse today’s data and prepare for Saturday."

Willy Rampf, Technical Director"It was a productive first day of practice. As usual we concentrated on race preparation. The focus was on the tyre selection. In Budapest the two softest tyre compounds will be used. Now we are going to analyse the data we have collected. This will be the base for our race strategy."