Theissen sees BMW as third strongest team

And what's more, Theissen claims that, despite the team's slow start to winter testing, he wouldn't have done anything differently in developing the car.

"Of course we had maybe not expected, but hoped, the car would be very quick right out of the box, and we faced a situation and it became very clear to us at the first test that we would have to work hard to exploit the full potential of the car," he said

"But I see this as a normal and very valuable process in terms of increasing the ability and know-how of the team in order to deal with future issues."

Theissen added that he believes that the F1.08 is a significant advancement over its predecessor and that this as much as anything contributed to its painful birth.

"It is quite clear that we have taken a major step with the new car, one could say a conceptual step and given the position we were in last season, there is only one way to beat the cars in front, you have to take a bigger step and that always means a bigger risk as well," he said.

"So I think looking back obviously I had hoped the car would be quick right away, but we would not do anything different if we had to do it again."

Theissen explained that the main problems the team faced with the F1.08 centred on suspension and aerodynamics, though he added they were well on the way to solving them.

"The suspension issue was sorted out I would say immediately, after the second test we had a solution," he said. "The aero situation proved to be more complex and it was not one big thing to be resolved, but a combination of several steps to be taken.

"All these steps were interdependent, that is why I said before we learned a lot in the past weeks and there is more to come."

Theissen added that the strong progress BMW made in testing has allowed them to remain focussed on their 2008 goals of closing the gap to the top two and scoring the team's first victory.

"I think our target apparently is to continue on the steep slope we had in the past two years, and that means to get closer to the two top teams in front of us and finally win a race this year, and if you ask me about that I would say we are not there yet," he accepted.

"We made strong progress during the testing season, we had quite a difficult start, made strong progress and learned a lot in this period, it was really very convincing the way the team worked through the early weeks with the new car.

"I am confident we can continue, I don't expect us to be in a position to win a race early in the season but we still have the target for later."