BMW Sauber happy with speed of car

The testing times on both single laps and long runs of the new F1.07 have left BMW Sauber's rivals in no doubt that the team will be a threat this year, despite Nick Heidfeld playing down their pace to autosport.com last week.

However, Rampf has given the first indication that the team are comfortable with where they stand at the moment - especially when it comes to their speed over longer race distances.

"Compared with other cars, we appear to have good overall pace," he told this week's Autosport. "On pure lap time we are quite quick and the long runs are representative too. We've actually had very low tyre degradation and our tyres have been quite consistent."

Rampf has admitted that there do remain some concerns about the reliability of his team's new car, although the Hinwil-based outfit were working hard at getting their issues resolved before the season opener in Melbourne.

The team head to Bahrain next week, with its Australia-spec aero package due to appear for the first time at the second Sakhir test.

"Hydraulics problems can be very time consuming because they put the car out of action for hours," he said. "That's meant we've done fewer long runs than our rivals, but it's also because we've been making technical changes and learning about tyres.

"By the time we get to Bahrain, we should be in the thick of our race preparation and are confident we can bring reliability back to an acceptable level."