Heidfeld hails 'fantastic' result

The German, starting from fifth position, completed a strong performance in the chaotic race to give BMW their first podium finish of the season after crossing the line some five seconds behind race winner Lewis Hamilton.

Heidfeld is now hoping BMW can build on the great result and continue to push towards their first victory.

"This was a fantastic start to the season for us," said Heidfeld. "The team was working extremely hard to solve the problems we had in the beginning with the F1.08. We made constant progress and we have not exploited the full potential of the car yet.

"At the start I had too much wheel spin and could not keep Nico Rosberg behind me. I thought it is going to become a difficult race because I expected him to pit earlier. But we stopped on the same lap and our crew did a really great job to get me in front of him.

"With my second pitstop I was lucky that the safety car didn't come out earlier and I could refuel as planned. In the last stint I had to take care not to kill the option tyres. Overall the first race without traction control was less difficult than expected."

Teammate Robert Kubica, who had started from the first row of the grid, was unable to turn his good qualifying effort into a points finish.

The Pole lost time after changing his strategy and was then hit from behind by Williams's Kazuki Nakajima, forcing him into retirement.

"My race went pretty well in the beginning," he said. "I was on a similar strategy to Nick and I had a good pace. Then the strategy was changed and this did not pay off for me.

"I got stuck behind Bourdais and lost a lot of time. I still had a chance to score some points, but then at the end of the third safety car period Nakajima crashed into the rear of my car and I had to stop."