Nick Heidfeld Q&A

The Sauber Formula 1 team was something of a revelation in 2001. Not only did it provide the launch pad for the career of McLaren newboy Kimi Raikkonen, but more importantly it managed to take a comfortable fourth place in the constructors' championship ahead of much bigger and better-funded outfits. The Swiss squad is quietly hoping it can do more giant-killing this year, and none less than its driver Nick Heidfeld. The German was overlooked by McLaren and is about to embark on his second year at Sauber. And after driving the all-new C21 at Barcelona this week, he is quietly optimistic

"We're really happy for today. When we had the shakedown it was okay on the first day, we were unlucky on the second day [because of the weather]. We didn't have any major problems and we almost finished our programme. The lap times were also not so bad, although we didn't concentrate on that."

"Yes, it feels more direct, stiffer and better at changing direction."

"Yes, and it definitely feels better although it's not a massive difference. To feel that you would really have to drive one car and then jump into the next one."

"Yes, quite soon and I'm really happy about that because everybody says it's important to have a good feeling straight away. I'm feeling confident in the car. I'm not going one hundred per cent to the limit, because first of all it's testing and this is the only one that we have at the moment. We need to do some set-up work and a lot of other stuff, so there's no point."

"We have tried some different things on the set-up just to see what direction the car goes in and also some electronics work."

"At the next Barcelona test."