Happy Heidfeld welcomes point

Heidfeld, starting from 10th on the grid, overtook Honda rival Rubens Barrichello very early in the race, the move allowing the BMW driver to maximise his race strategy.

"I am very happy," admitted Heidfeld. "The goals we set for ourselves were to be in the top ten in qualifying and in the points in the race, and we achieved both of these. For me it is very important to be back to normal again.

"The steps we have taken are working and obviously we found what the problems were from Imola and the Nurburgring.

"My start wasn't good, but I was able to defend tenth and the balance of the car was okay for the entire race distance. It was important to overtake Rubens Barrichello. At this point in the race his car was heavy and mine was light.

"If he had held me off I would not have made it into the points, but I overtook him on the outside in turn one, which is always fun."

In contrast, teammate Jacques Villeneuve paid the price for being held by the two Super Aguris of Takuma Sato and Franck Montagny early on, the Canadian having to settle for 12th position.

"I had a good start, but the two Super Aguris had amazing starts and then there were cars in front and there was nowhere to go," Villeneuve said. "It was a question of braking late. I was next to David Coulthard, but then he pushed me wide a little bit, which was fair.

"Then I lost six seconds in the first two or three laps, and that was it. We could not do too much today, the best I think we could have hoped for was tenth without the start difficulties.

"Our pace was good in the race, and we have a lot of mileage left on our engine for Monaco, so we can do a lot of laps and we should be quick there."