BMW relieved by productive Friday

BMW Sauber technical director Willy Rampf expressed relief at the amount of running his team were able to do on the opening day of practice for the German Grand Prix, with poor weather expected to mar tomorrow's activities

Despite a minor setback to his team's efforts when Robert Kubica spun into the barriers on the entry to the stadium section in first practice on Friday, the Pole and teammate Nick Heidfeld were relatively upbeat after ending the afternoon eighth and ninth overall on the timesheets.

And Rampf was happy that the team got through their scheduled work over the course of the day.

"After the conditions were bad in the first free practice, we had a very busy afternoon session, trying to work on the car as much as possible," he said.

"We mainly concentrated on the tyre evaluation but also did some set-up work. However, the conditions were not consistent which gave us a bit of a challenge also in the afternoon. Nonetheless, we are quite happy with our pace.

"According to the weather forecast, it could be raining tomorrow, but we expect dry conditions on Sunday. Therefore it was important to collect a lot of data today."

Heidfeld said that the feel of the F1.08 was better than it had been in last week's test at Hockenheim.

"Compared to last week's test the car's balance was better today," said the German. "We have made several changes during the practice sessions and completed the tyre comparison.

"After wet conditions this morning, we knew there was a chance of more rain at the end of the second session. Consequently we switched to soft tyres earlier than usual. Overall both sessions went quite well."