Heidfeld relieved qualifying woes are over

The German had failed to outqualify BMW Sauber teammate Robert Kubica until the British Grand Prix last weekend, but he had already closed the gap to the Pole in Mangy-Cours, where he was less than a tenth of a second behind.

At Silverstone, Heidfeld finished just two hundreds of a second off Kubica's pace in Q2 and then outqualified him in Q3 when the Pole hit trouble.

Heidfeld admitted it has been a relief to get over the problems, and the German reckons his championship position shows his race pace has always been strong.

"Yeah, I'm relieved that the weekend, and especially qualifying went smoothly," Heidfeld told autosport.com during testing ahead of the German Grand Prix.

"Of course the race was fantastic. To be second and after some nice overtakings.

"But for me qualifying was the bigger issue, because the races were usually good anyway. I had a podium two races ago in Canada so it's not like before everything was bad.

"It was my third podium of the season. I'm fifth now in the championship, just 12 points behind the leader, which is good considering all the problems I had. To be such in a good position with a lot of problems is not too bad."

Heidfeld said his goal is obviously not to be close to Kubica, but ahead of him, although he confessed he has been pleased with his step forward.

"Obviously Robert was usually stronger in qualifying than me, and in Silverstone and Magny-Cours we already started to change something," Heidfeld added.

"In Magny-Cours I was six hundreds behind him and in Silverstone two hundreds, despite having a big oversteer moment.

"Of course it's still not my target (to be behind) but it's getting to where I can live with. I think we have made a big step forward."