Heidfeld: Still more to come from me

The German struggled for qualifying pace in the first half of the season, and has been outqualified by BMW Sauber teammate Robert Kubica in all but one of the races so far.

Kubica also gave the team their maiden pole and victory, but Heidfeld has raised his game in qualifying since a breakthrough test in Barcelona.

The German has outscored his teammate in the last two races and is now just seven points behind.

Heidfeld reckons, however, that his form is still not as strong as last season.

"Not quite yet, but it is getting a lot closer," Heidfeld told autosport.com. "In qualifying I did some mistakes, but it was not like two races ago where I was simply too slow and I didn't know what it was.

"In Q2 I knew I could have done it but I just messed up two corners. I think it is now going in the right direction and this makes me very happy."

He added: "I think the test at Barcelona was the most important point of the year for me, trying some new things and finding a couple of things and some solutions.

"After that of course there is still some fine tuning and I am still learning. There were a couple of things that I needed to think about before it became natural."

Heidfeld admitted he has been pleased with how he has coped with the difficult situation he has gone through.

"What I am more happy myself about is that even during the time when I struggled most of the time I managed to maximise the potential I had at the time," he said. "I didn't say shit and throw the car away, I still took what I could get and made the most of the pace I had."

The BMW Sauber driver says his resurgence will not affect his contract renewal talks right now, but he reckons his championship situation shows he is doing a good job.

"Nothing different from now. I cannot speak about the contractual situation," Heidfeld said.

"But I think if somebody like me that has obviously had some problems until now, up until this race, is only 12 points behind the championship leaders, and only seven points behind Robert, who was said to be the best driver this year, then it is not that bad."