BMW blame bad timing for result

The team looked competitive during the wet running on Friday, but in qualifying Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica had to settle for 10th and 11th respectively.

"The conditions were quite difficult but in the beginning it went pretty well for me," said Heidfeld. "Once I made it into the top 10, I was expecting more. The last laps were disappointing - instead of more grip, I got less. We now have to figure out why this happened."

Kubica, on the other hand, said that his result was dictated purely by bad timing.

"We were a bit unlucky today as the gap to position 10 and the third qualifying session was pretty narrow," he said.

"We put a new set of tyres on for the second qualifying session, as we planned not to make a pit stop in the session. You need two or three laps to make the tyres work - the track dried up after the first laps, but then it started to rain heavily so unfortunately I was not able to improve the lap times."

Team principal Mario Theissen echoed Kubica's thoughts.

"Today it was vital to go out at the right moment and set a quick lap time with warm tyres," he said. "We were not able to do this."