BMW stay cool despite slow start

BMW Sauber were not too disheartened by their opening day of practice for the French Grand Prix, despite seeing Renault, Ferrari and McLaren ahead of them on the timesheets

Fresh from his maiden victory in the Canadian Grand Prix, Robert Kubica ended the afternoon session in sixth place overall, two places ahead of teammate Nick Heidfeld.

But although the positions on the timing sheet were not ideal, an electronic problem for Kubica and a minor car issue for Heidfeld meant neither driver was able to show their full potential.

Kubica said: "This was a quite difficult Friday and we lost some running time in the second practice session due to technical problems. The balance of the car was a bit strange and, therefore, it was quite difficult to drive. We now have to analyse the data and see what we can do for tomorrow."

Heidfeld had to stop his car a few minutes before the end of the second session after it bottomed out heavily at Turn Three, just after he had run over some kerbs.

Technical director Willy Ramp said he had no reason to feel the team were facing an uphill battle for the rest of the weekend, however.

"Today we completed the usual race preparation and concentrated mainly on the tyre comparison," he explained. "In addition, we made some set-up changes, and we will now analyse all the data we gathered.

"At the beginning of the second session Robert's car had a misfire which we fixed by changing an electronic component. This cost us some time, but we were still able to complete our programme.

"Although Robert is not yet happy with the set-up, I think we have a good basis for the rest of the weekend."